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several THINGS
Thing One: Ruth Negga is performing the title role in Hamlet in Dublin this fall AND I HAVE TICKETS FOR OPENING NIGHT.
I am trying to convince myself I shouldn’t also buy tickets for closing night, to see how the performance has matured. I really want to. But they’re more expensive. :(
Indy said, “Tickets for HAMLET? Is that like HAMILTON!?!?!?!?!” and was very disappointed to hear that no, it was not, and also that it wasn’t appropriate for 8 year olds. :)
Thing Two: I got the return address stickers for the much-delayed Redeemer Kickstarter, and they’re cute and I love them and I’m very pleased with them.
Thing Three: Indy and I have a game we play on the way to the zoo. There’s an enormous round-crowned tree just a little ways before the entrance, and when he was very small, I told him a dragon lived in it, so we always greet the dragon and have a chat with him on our way in to the zoo.
Last weekend we went to the zoo with the cousins, and Indy (who often pauses a game when we approach other people) thought maybe we shouldn’t say hi to the dragon this time, but I thought we should, and we explained the game to his cousins, who greeted the dragon despite their advanced ages of 13 and 15, and off we went to the zoo.
To my utter, like, eye-stingingly-bright, delight, on the way out, the older cousin said, without prompting, “Goodbye, Dragon,” quite solemnly and as though it was exactly what one always did at the zoo.
They’re good kids.
Thing Four: Deirdre and her younger son and I went to see Black Panther, which Deirdre had not yet seen. We didn’t know if her son would get there in time, nor if we could leave a ticket at the box office for him to collect, so I said, “Well, I’ve seen it three times, so I’ll wait for him so you don’t miss the beginning of the movie.”
“OH GOOD,” she said, “I couldn’t figure out how to ask without it being rude!!” Then we burst out laughing. :)
“WELL I GUESS I’LL STAND HERE AND WAIT FOR SEIRID,” she said, leadingly and not at all artificially.
“OH NO DEIRDRE, I’VE SEEN IT THREE TIMES, I’LL STAND HERE AND WAIT FOR HIM,” I said in the same tones, and then we fell on each other laughing. (Deirdre and I have a great time together. :))
Anyway, he showed up on time, having booked it from school, I CAUGHT A DITTO WHILE WAITING FOR HIM, and we all got into the theatre before the movie started.
During the first challenge scene she seized both our hands and curled up in horror in the chair, terrified of what would happen. During the second, she said, “WHY DO THEY HAVE TO DO THIS ON THE EDGE OF THE WATERFALL!”
She told me I’m not allowed to say she cried, though. :)
Thing Five: Before I’d gotten up this morning, Indy (who is not yet enrolled in a Dublin school, and so is doing school work at home) came up to inform me he’d done his school work already except he needed help with one part of the science experiment.
I came down to help, and he had in fact done his history and geography work already, was nearly finished with his science, and had only his spelling, language and math to go.
I know perfectly well that he did it because he wanted to be able to play his video game, but god damn if he didn’t earn it, AFAIC. :)
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sunday summary
I made scones this morning and opened the maple apple butter to try it on them.
oh my GOD that stuff is good
Holy crap. Completely different delivery of flavour than the caramel, which is all tart apple and then slow roll of caramel. This is rich sweet maple with a low apple base, much, MUCH more maple-y than I expected from the taste I had when it was still warm. Oh my *god*.
Ted’s all like: you need to start a fudge and apple butter cottage industry and sell it for millions in five years’ time.
***
The other day, at the hot chocolate cafe in Dublin:
Them: Where’ve you been?
Me: We moved to Drogheda.
Them: Oh! We should open a shop there!
Me: Don’t. I’ve lost 10lbs since moving.
Them: Oh dear.***
I got my ART OF ELFQUEST from the Kickstarter a couple of days ago and will wax rhapsodic about that on a recent reads post, but one of the perks was an ElfQuest coloring book.
*incoherent noises of squee*
Seriously, I can’t believe it never occurred to me to photocopy pages from the original B&W comics and color them (ESPECIALLY since my sister (age 9 or so) once colored in one of my originals! this got brought up for some reason in the last year or two and Deirdre for the first time looked actually pained and said, with genuine remorse, “Yeah, I’m sorry about that,” whereas at age 9 she really couldn’t understand why I was SO FURIOUS that she’d done that *laughs*), but now that the idea’s been put in my head…
…now that the idea’s been put in my head I’m regretting, pretty much for the first time, getting rid of all the non-original-quest B&W originals I owned when we moved to Ireland. Anyway, I assiduously scanned the entire coloring book before starting on it, because then I can color pages AGAIN in NOT BOOK ACCURATE COLOR SCHEMES (maybe) (theoretically) (possibly) (why does the idea make me twitch?) and then I couldn’t decide what picture I wanted most to color so I just started at the beginning. I may end up coloring the whole thing in order, in fact, which would be unheard of. So would coloring an entire coloring book, for that matter, but I see it happening. :)
Anyway, I had a perfectly splendid time coloring the first picture. Leetah sure has a lot of hair, though. I mean, I knew that, but it’s particularly noticeable when you have to color it all twice to get the right color. And I also already want a different coloring book with more of the minor characters, as this one is heavy on The Big Three.
Ted, immediately after I got the book: do you have enough colored pencils for an ElfQuest coloring book?
Me, thinking about it: probably
Me, opening pencil box & book: definitely notAt the least I need more pencils because I have an insufficient variety of browns for the Sun Folk, nevermind various shades of pale for the Wolfriders and Gliders (the Go-Backs, sadly, are almost entirely absent from this book, although really there aren’t very damn many Gliders either).
Still: *INCOHERENT SQUEE*!
***
So Deirdre and I were walking along, and Deirdre was singing something that I half knew the words to, and I sort of came in a bit on a word, then said, apparently with great solemnity and consideration, “I know a lot of vowel sounds in songs.”
Deirdre laughed for literally five minutes. She had to stop walking twice to laugh. It rang true, she said, she’d just never heard it expressed that way. “Usually,” she said, “we call that ‘not knowing the words,’ but I guess your way is a more positive spin on it.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m a very positive person.” :)
Relatedly, having just before that sung our way through Jesus Christ Superstar (hooray for lyrics websites, altho we sure knew a lot of them in the core of our souls) and having listened to her scat, I would totally pay money to watch her do a one-man show of JCS.
***
I can’t think of a fifth thing for five things make a post. Close enough.
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things post
I’ve had a constant headache for days. I can’t tell if it’s the lingering effects of this cold (that’s certainly part of it, as my sinuses are not yet clear and my ears are popping and by evening my throat is raw, apparently due to mouth breathing I’m not even aware of) or if it’s my hair, which is at the length that seems to start producing headaches and which I have found myself *particularly* hating during this god-forsaken cold. I should probably not summarily whack it off until the cold, at least, is gone, and I am able to determine whether it’s the hair or the cold causing the headaches.
Work on my Nanowrimo is going very slowly, again in large part thanks to this cold. Also because I’m in a hard stretch of it. Theoretically once I get past this particular bit it’s all downhill from there and it’ll get easier, but since this is the fourth attempt at the middle stretch of the book, I’m disinclined to regard anything about it as likely to follow theory. It’s profoundly unlikely, but I’d *really* like to have a draft of it done by our celebration of American Thanksgiving, which we’re holding on the 22nd. I’d like to spend the last week of November working on MAGIC & MANNERS.
Young Indiana has a rocket toy. For the past two days he’s been landing it on meterorites and comets. ♥ :)
And not to bury the lede, but REDEEMER has passed the halfway mark for funding! And I’ve got a copy editor lined up for the project now, which makes me happy. It’s starting to seem real!
Mikaela’s making me write now, so I’ll stop blogging and actually do my job.
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too busy to post
I’m at that stage again where I’ve got a backlog of posts I want to write and am apparently never going to get to them so I should let it go
(let it go, can’t hold me back anymore / which reminds me that yesterday Young Indiana pulled all my hair over one shoulder so I would be “like Elsa” and so this morning I said to him “should I braid my hair like Elsa’s?” and he said yes and I did and he said “That’s not like Elsa. Elsa’s braid is on the other side.” And I was like “…yes. yes it is, now that you mention it. CLOSE ENOUGH.”)
and make posts on other topics instead of mooping about the ones I haven’t done. Or maybe I’ll do a quick round-up:
I have read some good books lately. One was Chrysoula Tzavelas’s WOLF INTERVAL, 3rd in the Senyaza (MATCHBOX GIRLS) series, and right now you can get all 3 books plus all her Senyaza short stories at that Kickstarter link for only $12!
Another is Deborah Blake‘s debut novel WICKEDLY DANGEROUS, which I totally failed to read in time to blurb and am sad about. It’s a splendid modern twist on Baba Yaga with some terrific characterisations and funny funny lines. Well worth reading.
And UNMADE, Sarah Rees Brennan‘s third Lynburn Legacy book is out, and ended the trilogy very satisfactorily.
I’ve watched the first episodes of Gotham, Agents of SHIELD, Arrow and The Flash. So far I like The Flash the best by a country mile, as it seems to be having *fun*, but I was thinking about this season’s TV and thought “I like Person of Interest best of the new stuff this season” and then realized I’m watching PoI season 1 on Netflix, not on tv. Oops.
My s9 Supernatural finally arrived. Now I just need time to sit down and binge-watch it. :)
Pretty sure I’ve given up on Elfquest: the Final Quest. My failure to give a damn is turning to active dislike of the story. I just…yeah. Don’t like it. I actually don’t like it, and that’s sad.
I have got so many things to do. Over and out.
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things to say
I have a lot of political posts warring in my brain to be written and not much actual will to write them right now, it seems. I guess in another couple weeks I’ll see if I still want to say them.
In the meantime, this is a good body image campaign.
Ten days to go on the Fantasy Fudge Fundraiser and $1077 to make me write a story about Joanne attempting to make fudge. :)
After running out of ink and getting a new toner cartridge, my printer has started jamming on hideously wrinkled pages. After consulting the internet, I have taken its guts apart and discovered that the, uh, toner roller, or something, roller is, as the internet suspected, wrinkled. I have not yet concluded whether it can be unwrinkled or if it has to be replaced, but it’s putting a big, uh, wrinkle, in my plan to print up a 200 page manuscript for proofing. Argh, sez I; argh twice.
My MAGIC & MANNERS patrons have caught up to me and I honestly have no idea when I’m going to get ahead again. Not this month, unless a miracle occurs. Probably September, assuming all goes well. Which hardly ever happens. :)
Gabra Zackman starts to record the audio book of SHAMAN RISES today!
Ted and I are watching The 100. The worldbuilding in it is appalling. The story is apparently interesting enough, because we keep watching, but my *God* the worldbuilding is bad. I barely go an episode, HALF an episode, without wincing over it internally and frequently commenting externally. It makes me want to write my own post-apocalyptic dystopian young adult series with *good* worldbui–oh wait, I’m shopping that around right now, I remember. :)
Um. I guess that’s all for now. Except my thinks to do list so I remember the thinks to do on it.
– print up & proof STONE’S THROE
– catch up on M&M
– make many cakes
– go to shamrokon
– finish nephew’s book
– make green tea cupcakes
– go to la fanu birthday party
– type up & post MPOC’s fic
