So this fire, this one is close to us. We live basically under the “P” in the words “Cambrian Park”, at about 11:00 of the fire. No danger, though the air is very hazy and the smoke smell is very strong. Luckily today there is no wind, so the fire-fighters are able to make progress containing it.
Anyway, our guests are home now, after an unexpected extra day (gee, thanks, Air Canada!) plus unexpected Dental Issues and an unexpected heat wave* that made most activities a burden. But they got to go to SuperCon** and we saw the Prince Caspian movie, and involuntarily attended a street festival,*** and visited Emperor Norton’s grave, and Cheruby got to play Irish music with some other musicians**** and it was a lot of fun.
And the weekend before, my ATS dance studio had a public recital, which went pretty well I thought. I had a solo, with belly rolls. I like the belly rolls. Here are some pictures. I need to remember to smile, apparently. It doesn’t come naturally, and I also need a head arrangement that gives me more height without being a turban (this troupe doesn’t wear the turbans that are traditional to this dance style, but honestly the good ol’ turbans really visually balance the rest of the costume).
* That coincided almost exactly with their visit. Hmmm…
** I had to work all Saturday. Phoo.
*** We only wanted olive oil! I swear!
**** It was a fun time and everyone was extremely talented, though towards the end I had to kick R:tAG every time he was about to holler “It’s all the same song!” and he’d kick me every time I was about to holler “Play ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady!’” so decorum was preserved.
The visitors of Round 3 arrive today, hopefully, ‘cause their plane’s fifteen minutes late already and it hasn’t even left yet. And there have been Baggage Issues.
Here are some links that I’ve just been idly collecting. You’ve probably seen most of these. You might have even sent me these. Forgive me, the temperature outside just shot up to 100F / 38 C today, and my brain is correspondingly sluggish.
Find Your Daemon - Golden Compass related, of course. A very pretty web site. “Your profile reveals that you are modest, spontaneous, inquisitive, a leader, and assertive. You are therefore matched with the Crow Daemon.” Modest? I don’t think so, but I think all in all I’m very pleased with Anicetos. One of the other questions was about being easily distracted, and of course I
Sorry, I just saw something shiny. Where was I? Oh yeah. Crow daemon. Yeah, I like him.
- Flying Chocolate Pig - A culinary principle of mine is that any food can be improved by adding chocolate or bacon. But both?
- Lori Nix Photography - Pritty
- Desiree Palmen Photography - Amazing
- Weird Japanese Fetish - Or is that triply redundant?
- The Atheist Apocalypse - Look especially at the details.
- Weird Nature - Fascinating and horripilating.
- Miniatures by Thomas Doyle - Love. This.
- My latest earworm - "Latest" in that it's been in my head for almost a month now. Argh.
Round Two of visitor season is over, with Bne being safely delivered to the airport (hey, he’s legally a grownup; my responsibility ends there) in plenty of time to catch his flight. Too much, one might say, but I couldn’t take any more time off work. I might have managed to convince him that FAA regulations require you to check in four hours before your flight is supposed to leave… back me up on this if he asks, OK?
It was a great visit. Much wine was consumed, much “Venture Brothers” was watched. On Friday we drove up to an East German restaurant in San Francisco to meet some on-line friends of Bne’s who luckily turned out to be good people, because most of the evening was spent straightening out the web of lies that Bne had woven.*
And on Sunday we went to Maker Faire, which was AWESOMETASTIC and had a Steampunk/Victorian mobile home (my favourite!), and the biggest Diet-Coke/Mentos fountain that I ever did see**, and a hypnotizing auto-Zen garden, and a steampunk motorcycle, and motorized cupcakes, and a bigger-than-life sized robotic giraffe that people rode in, and yarn, and sewing machines, and a room full of books about making things, and music, and a traveling blacksmith, and big robots, and little robots, and just… everything. I didn’t even see Saturday night, which had the “Steampunk Lounge.” Ms. Geekchick took some great pictures here, but I’m not sure if they convey the scope of the event. Attendance was 65,000 people, with 500 exhibitor/vendors/makers. My people. And I got compliments on my apron and goggles.***
I took Monday off, partly to recover from darting around like a caffeinated hummingbird going “EeeeeeEEEEEEEeeeee!” for all of Sunday, and partly so Bne could indulge in an orgy of consumerism in preparation for his new Grownup Job. Thank me, people of Alberta, for now Bne owns decent pants.
(and I also might have bought some clothes myself. From Kenneth Cole and Calvin Klein, even. Eesh.)
On to Round Three!
* A mere sample: I mentioned that I was quite a bit older than Bne and one of the nice friends said “Really? You certainly don’t look it” and I was so pleased until Bne leaned over and said “I told her I was 43.”
** Not a great video, but it gives you the idea. There was about 200L of diet Coke involved. It was awe-inspiring.
*** What, you didn’t think I’d not go in costume, did you?
