Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Ivy's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, April 29th, 2012
8:22 pm	Life the Universe and Everything Yesterday, April 28th, my brother turned 42. Yesterday, April 28th, Cory Marder died. There's no significance in these two events. But they did both get me thinking about life, the universe and everything. Twenty-five years ago, when Scott was "courting" me, he did it by having the two of us sit in his big green chair together as I read Beanworld for the first time. The first time I met Larry Marder was that summer at ComicCon in San Diego. The first time I met Cory was also at SDCC. I have no idea if it was that first year or not anymore, but if it wasn't the first year, then it was the second. But the thing was, even when Cory wasn't there, she was there. Larry is one of my favorite people in the world, but Larry has always been Larry & Cory. They were a team. I've been sitting here trying to remember which events she was at, and which was were just Larry, and I can't remember. I can't remember because she was always there, even when she wasn't. She was so much a part of Larry that her presence was felt whether she was there in person or not. Cory was one of those people who lit up the entire room simply by entering. In Beanworld she's the inspiration for the character Dreamishness who's represented as the sun. Such a perfect depiction of her. Cory glowed. I complained to Larry once that his Dreamishness t-shirt was yellow and yellow was not a color I could wear. Larry said that the shirt was yellow because he made if for Cory, and yellow was her favorite color. I so get that. Yellow suits her to a T. The last few times I saw Cory, the cancer had taken its toll. She was careful not to over exert herself, and you could tell things were a bit more difficult. But it didn't matter. She still lit up the room. At Scott's surprise 50th birthday party she was the one helping calm my nerves while we waited for Scott, she helped coordinate the seating and the food and made sure to meet everyone there. I can't tell you how awesome she is. Was. Sorry. Larry says she was ready to go, and I believe that. This was not sudden, they had time to figure things out. I hope it was peaceful. I hope things are better for her now? I know there are a lot of us who will miss her. A very good friend of mine just lost both of her parents in the last six months, and then gained another granddaughter. Life goes on. We lose people we love. But if we keep them in our hearts, they are never truly gone. Goodbye Cory. I might not ever see you, but I know you will never be gone, because even when you weren't there, wherever Larry was, so were you. Larry, all my love to you. And Marcus, I hope you had a good birthday. Life. The universe. And everything. Make good use of this year. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
5:41 pm	If you miss it this Thursday morning, there's always next week! I know! Two posts from me in one week! What's the world coming to?! But this is important. Okay, not really. But it is to me. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that Sky has been getting involved with the radio station on campus, right? Well, first quarter she volunteered, second quarter she took the radio class, which included interning on one of the shows. This quarter, she has her own show! The thing is, because it's her first show and all, she was given a time slot that's not ideal (at least for Scott and I to listen to her). On the one hand, because of the time, she can play whatever she wants (there can be no "bad language" played on the station until very late), on the other she's on from 3am to 6am! But see, we can listen to it because the station is on the web. That means that anyone that wants to hear it can. And many of you do NOT live in our time zone. So, if you would like to hear Sky on the radio, her show is on Early Thursday mornings from 3-6am Pacific time. That's 6-9 Eastern, and there are timezone maps if you don't know what time that is where you are. The website to hear her at is KZSC. The name of her show is "Wordplay"; the idea is that she'll pick a word and the whole night will revolve around it. Last week was her first week and her theme was Coachella, since she had just come back from week one, and was gearing up for week two. I have no idea what her theme will be this week, but I know it'll be interesting and the music will be great. Assuming I wake up again (my alarm is set to wake me up at 2:45am) I will tweet when she's about to go on, so if you follow me there you will know when. Right now I have two friends over to do dinner and watch Avengers movie(s). They are entertaining themselves by playing Cooking Mama. Winter is giving them lessons. Listening without being able to see them, is very amusing. Don't forget, tomorrow (Thursday) morning (or whenever it is for you)! (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 23rd, 2012
8:40 pm	I'm not sure if "you had to be there" to find this funny, but we sure did. I haven't been online in forever. I have a post half-written that I started over a month ago now, so it hardly seems relevant. I saved it, so if I ever decide to try to finish it, I could, but for now, I'm going to forget the past and move on. To this past Saturday. Because it amused me. But, as usual with me, first the back story: I'm sure most of you know this, but, The Avengers movie opens up a week from this Friday. My plan had been to go to one of the all-day event things that they are doing and watch the five movies (Hulk, Thor, Iron Man 1&2, Cap.) then see the midnight of The Avengers. I was really looking forward to it, but it was not to be. Scott is talking at UCSC on Friday the 4th (Avengers opening day). That's where Sky is going to school, so of course I want to go see him there. They are flying him out on Thursday, he's doing a Q&A type thingy on Friday and then home Saturday. No formal lecture, but there might be class visits? Anyway, he's flying, I'm driving and meeting him there (we realized after the flight was booked that I could've just driven him and it wouldn't have taken much more time, but too late...). I was all into the idea of seeing the midnight show on Thursday there, but Scott, understandably, is concerned that he get enough sleep so that he can be well rested for Friday. This also means that I'm not around to go to the all-day movie fest on Thursday. So I decided to do my own. But not all day, and maybe repeating some of them, because why not! (mostly because there are bunches of people that want to join us and coordinating schedules is too difficult). So last week, on Wednesday, our friend Kassia came over and we watched The Hulk (which none of us had seen). [quickie review: I liked it more than Scott did, but the things I liked best were all the in-jokes and things. And paying homage to Bill Bixby and having him make a cameo despite the fact that he's dead, made me so happy that I could forgive most things. (Bill Bixby was one of my first huge crushes as a kid)]. She came over the next day as well, but instead of Avengering (yes, I can make a verb of anything), I showed her the first three episodes of Slings and Arrows (anyone who's been reading this blog for awhile knows just how much I love that show). Friday was Game Night. Nat Gertler brought his copy of Thor over (thank you again, Nat) so we didn't have to buy/rent it for our marathon (is it still a marathon when you're not doing it all on the same day? Probably not. I just don't know what else to call it). When most of the Game Night crowd had gone, Kassia and Robynne were left and we decided to watch some more Slings and Arrows (Robynne's seen them all and didn't mind coming in in the middle). So we watched two more. This is important, since we stopped with only one left of the first season. Okay, all this brings us to Saturday, which is what this post is all about. On Saturday Winter was going to a party at a friends house. The plan had been for Kassia and Robynne to get to my house when I was done dropping Winter off. Due to circumstances out of my control, I was an hour later than I thought I'd be and rushing. Scott called as I was heading home to ask about plans and dinner. I wasn't home and there were two other people who had a say so I didn't have an answer, but I told him that I expected we'd watch the last Slings and Arrows and then go to dinner, come back and start watching Avengers type movies. Scott thought that was silly since it was an Avengers night and we shouldn't be watching anything else. When I got home, and the gals had arrived we called Scott to firm up when/where/what we were doing for dinner. Since we all thought it was a tad too early for dinner, but we didn't want to watch a whole movie before we ate they suggested that we watch Slings and Arrows first. I was amused. We watched it. It is still brilliant. Scott wanted to get home in time to see some of it, but he just missed it all. Once he was there it was time to get food. We'd decided to get Panda Express because it would be quick. Ice cream was an important part of the days events, so we figured a quick dinner at Panda and then somewhere for ice cream to bring home. As we were driving, I noticed that the new ice cream place a few blocks away was finally open. In fact with the signs and all we realized that it had just opened that day. It was fate. We had to go. The place is called Sub Zero, and Scott, seeing the name said, "what, do they have a tank of Liquid Nitrogen that they freeze the ice cream with to get it that cold?" We all laughed and spent the rest of the drive imagining this place that Scott had just envisioned and telling stories of things you do with Nitrogen and things we've seen frozen. It entertained us. So after we ate, we went to Sub Zero to see if they were any good. There was a long line and we had to wait outside. Even so, we could look in the window, and what did we see? You guessed it: A giant Nitrogen tank used to freeze the ice cream!! The place is wild. You pick out a base (like "premium" which is basically ice cream, custard, soy milk, almond milk...) then you pick out a flavor or two or if you're me, three, then you get something mixed in. We were given coupons to get an extra mix in. They then shoot it with Nitrogen and freeze it up for you. You can get it soft medium or hard. I saw the sign and went on about how we should get it hard so that it would still be hard for carrying it out, then I read the small print on the sign and saw that's what they recommended. I got the premium ice cream, flavored with fudge chocolate, cherry, and hot cinnamon, with andes mint and dark chocolate chips mixed in. It was very very good. I can't wait to get to take others there. We had a grand time. Partly because it was so funny that our predictions kept coming true, partly because of the great company and partly because of the delicious ice cream. The only problem is that it took over two hours for us to eat and get ice cream. This meant that we were now starting movies and 9pm. We watched Thor, the two Coulson shorts (one on the Thor DVD the other on Captain America) and Captain America. I'm glad we plan on seeing Cap again as I was rather tired by then. All in all, a very late but awesome night. I think we should make ice cream at Sub Zero part of all the future movie nights, we just need to start earlier. I bought both Iron Man movies so other than the Hulk, which we rented, we are ready to go any day that people want to come over and watch. And Kassia's not seen the reboot Trek either, so happy times ahead. On May 4th (which is Star Wars day, but oh well) I will be at UCSC watching Scott talk, and then the two of us, and as many people who want to join us will find a theatre that's not sold out (even if we have to do a very late show) and we will finally see The Avengers. It will be later than we want, but since we'll be traveling and doing things Thursday and Friday beforehand hopefully we won't be spoiled. I can't wait. (By the way, if I don't post again for awhile, and you are worried about me, this is my Twitter feed. Unlike Facebook, you don't need to have an account to check it out, and mine's not locked. I tend to post on Twitter at least once a day. Sometimes a lot more, and sometimes I'm absent for a bit, but I usually let people know if I'm offline for more than a day. Since I "tweet" mostly from my phone, it's much easier to keep up to date, so I do...) (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 16th, 2012
1:18 pm	The long awaited (by me, anyway) post about music As we age, something happens. Life gets comfortable. We know what we know, and it's enough. Change is scary. It can be good scary, but it's still scary. The unknown is always nerve-wracking. It's unknown. We steadfastly hold on to the familiar. We are less likely to take chances. There are big things that fall into this category: Do I want to look for another job that might challenge me more. Do I want to take the chance with this new person, is it safe. Do I want to get a pet. Etc. Then there are the little things: Not trying new foods. Not going to new places. Etc. I do it all the time. I think we all do. That's what I used to do with music. I know I'm not alone in this because there are too many oldies stations out there. It's very easy to stick with the music that's familiar and safe. Sometimes we don't even realize we're doing it. I don't think I did. I listened to all kinds of new music. Except that mostly what I was listening to was new music by old bands (nothing at all wrong with this, mind) or little bits of what my family would introduce me to. But, when I turned on the radio? It was pretty much the Broadway station or First Wave (which plays new wave music from around the '80s). I love this music. I always will. But when I turn on either of those channels, there's a 90-95% chance I can sing along with anything they play. This is the music I know and love. But it's not the only music out there. There's really great music coming out all the time. ( I have a lot to say about this. It got long. The rest is under this cut. ) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
8:28 pm	Movies Movies Movies I really want to do a movies post, but I've seen so very many that I've not talked about, and many of them you've likely seen already if you wanted to, that I'm not sure how to go about it. I'm gonna start with my birthday, partly because all the movies I saw that day are still in theatres around here anyway, so... ( This got really long, so I'm putting it under a tab. LOTS of movies here. ) (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
1:33 pm	Do you know what day today is? Wow, it's been over a month since I've been here. The holidays kept me very busy! 12 Nights of Birthmas is not easy. Then there was a show that Winter was in and I was Stage Managing (a really awesome production, one of the best shows I've ever worked on). Plus the girls were around more than normal. What I'm trying to say here is that I've been really busy, and since I seem to only be able to write when it's quiet, the writing has fallen off. I have three posts I want to write. I promised Alice I would do a post about all the movies I've seen (I saw FIVE (5!) on my birthday, and a few more since, and then there were the ones that I saw before then...). I have a lot to say about movies. And TV shows. It really needs to be its own post. This Birthmas was unusual. Usually, I get DVDs for most of my gifts. There's also the underwear from my mom (I get upset if I don't get it, Mom knows that), a puzzle or two so that we have something to put together on New Year's (this year there were three, we've got the biggest of them being put together on our dining table, if you want to come help...), maybe a book, a gift card that used to be from Borders but is now from iTunes, and then a mix tape (Scott thinks I shouldn't call them mix tapes since they are CDs) from Sky. I guess this is all I need to be happy, since I rarely ask for something else. This year was no exception as for what I wanted. I asked for three things: Captain America, X-Men: First Class and the complete 2nd Series of the BBC's Sherlock. I got them all. Unlike normal, though, the only other DVD I got was the British TV series Spaced (Simon Pegg: SO VERY AWESOME). (Sherlock arrives next week: OMG Can Not Wait, I might do a whole post on that alone. Yes, I've seen it already, I have no remorse over that, I would've watched it legally if allowed to, and I had already bought the series on DVD before it even aired, so...) This year, though, I got music. Lots and lots of music. No, I mean LOTS and LOTS of music. I think the final tally was Two LPs, five CDs and a DVD from Sky that had stuff that she thought I would like; about another six or seven albums worth. The total (not counting the album that I haven't figured out how to put on my computer yet) is over 15 hours of music. I don't think I've heard it all yet, but I think it's beyond time that I did a music post as well. This post, however, is neither of those. This post is where I wish my parents a happy anniversary and where I thank Scott for marrying me, all those 24 years ago. Twenty-four years. Twenty-four years ago, Scott and I went to this tiny apartment wherein lived a little old lady name Florence McGee (not sure of the spelling), who was a justice of the peace. With us were our friends Alice and Brian. Florence was very sweet and almost married me to Brian (Scott had forgotten the license so Alice had run him back to our apartment, and Brian and I walked in together). The whole thing struck me as funny, and I couldn't stop giggling for the whole ceremony. It was very embarrassing. I think it was mostly nerves. We picked January 24th because it was my parents' anniversary and that way I'd never forget the date. Tonight we will have dinner with my parents, like we do every year. Afterwards, Scott and I will bring Winter back home and then go to a late movie, to have a "Just Us" kind of celebration. The problem with sharing the anniversary is that I think we both get just a bit short changed. My parents (who have been married 52 years as of today), only get a dinner in which they need to share the spotlight. 52 is far more impressive than 24. They deserve more. Scott and I miss the "Romantic Dinner" that is usually traditional, but then we try to get that at one of our other wedding anniversaries (we had three weddings). Twenty-four years. That's of marriage, not how long we've known each other. I figured it out recently, Scott and I met when he was Sky's age and I was in between Sky and Winter's ages (I was 17, Scott 18) Next year, will be different. Next year it's our 25th, and maybe we can do something really special. If Scott is still working on The Book, then there probably won't be enough time to do something elaborate, but maybe we can have some fun. Ha! Maybe we could get married again. You know, I'd do it. I'd marry Scott over and over again. I might have not been able to stop giggling during that first wedding, but I think that was a good omen. It's been 24 years, and there are things about me and my life that I am not happy with. I wouldn't say there is nothing I would ever want to change. But. Marrying Scott? That I've not regretted for an instant. He can still make me laugh at inappropriate times, and I cannot think of a thing in my life that is not better because he is there. Scott reads all my posts before I post them, but he has lots of work to do, so I'm trying to keep this very short to not take him away for too long. I'll end here by saying: Thank you Scott for the last 24 years. They were awesome. I don't know that I would've survived this long if you'd not been around. I love you. (21 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 19th, 2011
10:20 pm	12 Nights of Birthmas. Year 25 I had planned to write two blog post this week. There was too much to say and it didn't all go together, so two seemed like the right number. But here it is the end of the week and I still haven't written the first one. [In fact it's now the next week and I've still not finished writing this post.] I got sick, so I blame that. It was pretty awful, and now I'm mostly okay again. It lasted less than 24 hours. But they were really bad hours. I wanted to give a review of the movie Shame (which is rated NC-17 and about two very broken people). I had lots of stuff to say, maybe some other time? I also wanted to talk about a friend of mine who I just found out died a few months ago and no one had told me, and I realized that that was probably because no one knew we were friends. But we were, and if I'd know I would've done anything to be at whatever memorial that would've been appropriate for me to attend. And I've been rather sad since I found out. That would've led to memories of another friend of mine that I also miss. This one, though is my friend Jeannie, and the plan was to wish her a happy birthday, but her birthday was yesterday, so I missed it.[um, okay, make that last week now. Wow, I'm late] There is a party tomorrow,[was a party...oh, never mind.] and I wish I could've been there, but I'm on the wrong coast. Jeannie: I hope it's a wonderful party, and I hope that your birthday was wonderful. I miss you. See, it would've been an interesting post. Don't know if those thoughts will ever get written. We are moving into the future. Which is really a leap into the past. Twenty-five years to be exact. Twenty-five years ago, my best friend and roommate Alice and I were bemoaning our birthdays. Or as we call them, "our Birthmas". Anyone with a late December birthday knows what I'm talking about. Alice's birthday is the 21st and mine is the 29th. Our entire lives we've not had birthdays we've had Birthmas. Back in 1986, Alice and I were living together and it was the first time we were going to be able to be with each other for both our birthdays and we decided that that was cause for celebration. We started on the 20th and went through to New Year's Eve. There was a different theme for every night. We called it The Twelve Days of Birthmas, and it was life-changing. Luckily, Alice is awesome so we still have the schedule of that original party. There are things on it that I don't remember. I'll just tell you it the way I remember. Kurt Busiek and Adam Phillips made it for two of the nights. I think one of them was the London night. I remember dancing. Not sure if it was that night or not. The night with the dancing was the night where we wound up calling the police on our upstairs neighbors because they were doing something with a lot of banging that was causing the ceiling to start dropping plaster on us, and we were scared someone was getting hurt. There were nights that had lots and lots of people, and there was at least one night where Alice didn't even make it, and I was there alone! (or maybe our friend Carrie was there so I wasn't totally alone?) (I think that might have been when I was baking cookies?) New Year's Eve, Alice's brother, Brian, left us bottles of champagne, one of which got stolen by the upstairs neighbors in retaliation for us calling the police. One was enough and we had a lovely night. Probably with a jigsaw puzzle. Memories fade, but the most memorable of the nights was December 23rd. That is the night that changed my life. It was our caroling night. Some of the nights had more of Alice's friends, some had more of mine, and some had friends that were "ours" together. Caroling turned out to be an Ivy night. Several of my friends from the Boston Children's Museum (where I was working at the time) came over. And then there was this guy who I'd known in college, had seen a year ago on my birthday, but hadn't seen since, who I kinda liked. It was a very strange first date. To begin with, we'd first met 8 years before. We'd been friends off and on for years, but the kind of friends who hung out, but didn't spend lots of time with each other. We'd been talking on the phone for the last month, but hadn't seen each other for a year. And this strange evening was our first date. One of my friends from The Children's Museum, one was a hard-of-hearing little person (is that the proper term these days?) in a wheelchair. Our second floor walk up was a problem. She had to be carried up the stairs. There was only one man at the party, and he provided the lift for her. Once we were all upstairs, we hung out singing and having a great time. But it was caroling, and one should carol outside and be heard, so our little troop trooped downstairs again to the door to door thing. Ok, you really have to picture this: There were maybe nine of us(?) walking down the street. One is in a wheelchair being pushed by a friend of mine who has CP (I think that's the correct initialed disease, could've been MS, not sure anymore, thing is she used the chair to help her walk) walking in front of the wheelchair, going backwards, was Alice, who was signing the songs we were singing to our friend, Francis, in the chair. The rest of us walked in the group. With one male voice. And remember, this really isn't the best of neighborhoods, so in the end, we never actually knocked on a single door. We walked around the block, singing loudly. To ourselves. It was awesome. And then we went back to the apartment and hung out, singing, drinking hot chocolate, probably eating pizza (I expect that tradition started then) and eventually everyone but Alice, me, and Scott left. And that was the beginning. Some months later, Alice, Scott and I found a bigger place and all moved in together (well, Scott and I moved in together, Alice was our housemate). One year, one month, and one day after that night caroling, Scott and I were married. Like I said. Life changing. Every year since that first one, Scott and I have gone caroling on the 23rd. Some years it's been huge. While we were still living in the Boston area, Scott's mom would join us and we'd go to people she knew, even visiting nursing homes and things. Once we moved to the West Coast, we started doing it at my parents' house. They know; the 23rd we shall invade. These days we tend not to go out—well, we used to go to my folks' next door neighbors, but they're not there anymore, so we might not leave the house this year. Thing is, the caroling was just one part of that original Twelve Nights Birthmas. There were eleven other nights and so many memories. And that was 25 years ago! Alice and I have decided that we can't let this year go without doing something to commemorate that not-quite two weeks. So this year we are doing the 12 Days of Birthmas: Internet Edition. Starting tomorrow night there will be Birthmas events every night for the next week. Alice started a Facebook page for memories and Sky has said that she'll set up an event page for us (I am on FB, but it's really a lie, I never go there and have no idea how to do anything). You are all welcome to join. I'll likely be tweeting about it a lot in the next few days. If you want to vicariously join us, we would love it (my twitter is here if you want to follow along! If you want to avoid it and feel like unfollowing me, that's cool too). Because tomorrow is the first night of Birthmas and also the first night of Hanukkah, that is going to be our theme for the night. So Birthmas gets underway with the lighting of the first candle and the eating of the chocolate gelt. In our house there will also be the ritual reading of Isaac Bashevis Singer's first story in Power of Light (we read one of the stories each night). Alice gets to pick what happens on the 21st since it's her birthday. I know that on my birthday there will be the watching of many movies. I've now seen the new Sherlock Holmes movies twice, and I'm pretty sure I'll be desperate to see it again by the time the 29th rolls around, so I can pretty much guarantee that will be one of the movies, but there are about a dozen movies that have, or are about to, come out that I'm dying to see, so who knows what else I will want to see. I'm stage managing the show that Winter is in, so I'll have rehearsals for three of the nights, but I think the plan is to try to do things early so that we can coordinate with both coasts since Alice is in Massachusetts. All events will be mentioned on my Twitter and on the FB page. JOIN US! Oh, and Scott, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY. This Friday will be 25 years from our first date. Thank you for putting up with the craziness of that night and for coming back for more. Alice, Wednesday is your birthday. Thank you for sharing so much of your life with me. I think I'd have long ago gone crazy if you hadn't been there. Two of my favorite people in the world. BEST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS EVER. (27 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
12:38 am	This might not be important to you, but it's very important to me First off, I still have comments to reply to, and I will. Very soon. Been away from the house most of last week, and today might be the only day I have here for this week, so it might take a bit longer than I'd like, but I THANK YOU for your comments. They mean a lot to me (as do all of you). But this was important. Really important. Well, to me. You all will likely think I'm just being silly. WE SAW MOVIES!!!! Yes, that really does deserve to be in all caps and needs it's own post that I couldn't wait until I had more time to write. So, even though there are lots of things I'd like to talk to you about, instead I'm talking to you about MOVIES, because they are very very important. There were four movies that came out last week that we wanted to see. And we managed to see all four of them. Let me start by telling you that some really great movies came out this week and you really should see them. The first movie we saw was The Muppets. This is the movie I was most looking forward to seeing. In the end, I can't say that it was my favorite. But only because there are REALLY GREAT movies out right now. Nat Gertler summed it up really well when he said that it was a great movie if you really like the Muppets. And it is. I love the Muppets, so I loved the movie. If I hadn't been a fan, I don't think the movie would've made me one. All four of us had a great time. There were lots of in-jokes and adult jokes and kid jokes and it works on lots of levels. I'm not a big fan of Amy Adams (yeah, I know, I'm weird, everyone loves her. Sorry. She kinda grates on me), but she was fine in the movie. My biggest complaint was that there was not nearly enough Gonzo or Rawlf. But then, I love them more than is healthy, so I always want more. Both of them were basically reduced to a cameo each. *sigh* Nonetheless, if you are a fan of the Muppets, I highly recommend this movie. It's not the best Muppet movie ever (my personal favorite is Muppets Take Manhattan) but it is lots of fun, and if everyone goes to see it then there might be more. Which, for me anyway, could only be a good thing. Thing is, I don't really need to tell you that. If you are a fan of the Muppets, you are going to see the movie. You planned on seeing it way before I sat down to write this post. In fact, likely you've already seen it. You had a holiday weekend, you needed something to do, you went to the movies. If you're not a teenage girl, you probably were not that interested in New Dawn (a movie that I have enough disdain for that I'm not double checking that I had the correct title), so if the above is all true. You probably saw The Muppets. When we went on Thanksgiving Day, the house was packed. Thanksgiving night, we went to see another movie. Arthur Christmas has a stellar (to me anyway) voice cast, despite it being computer animation it comes from the Aardman Studios (Wallace and Grommet's home) and it got a very high score on Rotten Tomatoes which was enough to get our family to check it out. The bad thing about this movie is that there were four people at the show we went to. And we were them. This could be because it's a "kids" movie and we saw the late show, but, every time I've told people they should see it, they looked at me confused, like, "really? but it doesn't look that interesting." So let me say this here and now, in no uncertain terms. Arthur Christmas is worth seeing. I was much more emotionally invested in it than I was in The Muppets. Those parts that are meant to make you cry? They worked for me. And it was really funny. The script was awesome. The voices were perfect (James McAvoy! Bill Nighy! Jim Broadbent!Hugh Laurie!). I just can't say enough how good this movie was. It is a perfect little Christmas movie. When it was over, Sky said, "So, we have another movie to add to the list of movies we watch every year at Christmas." I think that all four of us are planning/hoping/expecting to see it again before it leaves theatres. It's one of those movies that just surprises you. All the characters are well honed. You know where the movie is going to go from the very beginning, but it still manages to take you places you weren't expecting. And though it fails the Bechdel Test (there are at least two female characters, but they don't have a scene together) the female characters are pretty awesome. Take my word for it, go see it. I'm pretty sure you won't be disappointed. Unless you hate animated movies or holiday movies, I guess? It's not doing well. I think that's because people don't realize how great it is. It was not promoted enough, maybe? We saw the 2-D version. Which is really good, because now we have a ready made excuse to go see it again. You see, we have to. We have to check out the 3-D version. If you are in our area and want company to see it, just let me know. I'll take any excuse to go see it again. On Friday, Game Night consisted of Winter and three of her friends; Sky, Scott, Me and Nat Gertler. We seem to have a new tradition that if Game Night is that small we go to see a movie. Since Winter and her friends were not coming with us, we went to see The Descendants. Hey, live action! Not made for kids! It was a very good movie. We saw it at the local art house, and, as we always do when he is there, wound up talking to the manager for twenty minutes before the show (it's kinda cool when he comes out because he heard our voices when we were buying our tickets. Nice to be appreciated!). This is the "George Clooney is a dad of two daughters who's not been a great dad or husband, but now his wife's in a coma and he has to rally around" movie. Okay, that's not a very good description, but if you've seen the trailer than you know what movie I'm talking about. The trailer makes it look like a comedy. and it is funny. But it's not a comedy. It's very melancholy. Just look what it's about! (Well, I'm not telling you everything, because I hate giving things away, but take it from me, the subject matter is not very happy). If you were thinking of seeing it because you wanted a feel good happy movie, it's probably not the best choice. We had planned on going as a family, but since Winter was busy she didn't come with us. I thought she would like it because it had two young girls as main characters. I'm really glad she didn't come. I don't think she would've enjoyed it at all. The acting is very good. The script managed to surprise me a bit. Mostly it just made me a bit sad... So, this one falls into the "I'm glad I saw it. I've thought about it a bit since seeing it. I don't need to see it again, but if someone really wanted to go, I'd be willing." Of the four movies I'm talking about today, it's the one that I don't feel any great desire to see again. Willing to see it again, but really don't need to. Make what you will of that. The fourth movie we saw was last night. We went to see Hugo. Sky is back at Santa Cruz and Winter wasn't feeling well, so Scott and I went by ourselves. And now we have the excuse that the kids didn't see it so we get to go back and see it again! (we are so clever like that). Thing is, Hugo was not what I was expecting at all. It's a movie about art and life and making things work. And it's beautiful. When we left, Scott said, "it's billed like a blockbuster, but it's really an art-house movie" and it is. The thing about the three movies that I want to see again is that I know that when I do, I will see so very many things that I missed the first time around. They are so full that you can't see it all in one viewing. And Hugo is so beautiful you want to see it again, just to see what was on the screen when you were busy watching the plot (or to see what was happening with the plot when you were marveling at the beauty on the screen). It's based on a book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and I'm pretty sure that we met the author of the book, Brian Selznick, when Scott (and he) were winning their Quill awards, so it's really cool to see the book go on to become a movie. This was another late show that we went to, and it was a Monday night, so I'm hoping that this is why there was almost no one besides us in the theatre. The movie is very dreamlike and it defies description. The characters are quirky and almost caricatures while also being well rounded, which seems like a contradiction, but somehow, isn't. One of the things that strikes me about the movie is that there are no bad guys. There are people who do things that might hurt others, but we find ourselves sympathizing with everyone to some extent. Even the perceived "bad guy(s)" all have reasons for their behavior that make sense and we find ourselves unable to hate them. And this is supposed to be a kids' movie! How cool is that? A movie geared for kids that is not black and white but a whole rainbow of personalities?! And though I knew how the movie was going to end from the very beginning, the path to that ending was twisty in ways I'd never considered. These days, on my birthday, I tend to go to a movie, or watch one at home. There are another half dozen (at least) movies coming out before then that I am dying to see. This means that the movies in this post will likely be gone out of the theatre by then (my birthday's at the end of the year). Unless you all GO AND SEE THEM, so that the theatres keep them for awhile. Or maybe, I'll just assume that there are so many that I want to see that I'll have enough to spend the whole day at the theatre seeing movies (this, by the way, is Ivy's idea of a perfect birthday) that will be coming out in the next few weeks. I guess I'll just have to find away to see these again before them. But you should too. And, you know, ask me if I'm available. If I am, I'll join you. [ETA: (this is extra text that I'm adding before I even post. I'm weird that way) So, our friend Lauren came over tonight. We had dinner and then were thinking about what we could do. We told her that she really needed to see Arthur Christmas and her reaction was pretty much the reaction everyone we've said this to has given us. Which is "really?" We decided the only thing to do: we dragged her to see it. SHE LOVED IT. I tell you this is an awesome movie. We went to the late show, and sadly, again, we were the only people in the theatre. When it was over I asked the person taking tickets. She said that all the shows were that empty. Seeing it again, I can now say that Arthur Christmas is my favorite of the four movies we saw this week. I will gladly see it again. This time we saw it in 3-D, there were a few places where the 3-D was very cool. If you can only afford one 3-D movie, make that one Hugo cause it's beautiful in 3-D. Either way you see Arthur you will enjoy it. The script is wonderful, and this time I noticed all sorts of things that I'd missed the first time. Next time I go, I'm going to notice Michael Palin's voice, cause I missed it again this time. Do yourself a favor and see Arthur Christmas. it's way better than you think it will be. Really.] (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 21st, 2011
10:30 pm	Winter has decided that last November was the worst month of her life. We're hoping not to repeat Wednesday, November 16th was my sister Holly's 50th birthday. For the next month and a half we will be the same age. In order to celebrate her birthday I went to a concert. That's a lie. I went to the concert because I wanted to go, but since it was on her birthday I pretended that there was some correlation. Actually, if Holly had been in town she wouldn't have wanted to go to the concert and I would have had to stay home because it was her birthday. Probably a good thing that she lives so far away. The concert was They Might Be Giants with Jonathan Coulton opening. I have seen both of them preform before. Okay, that's actually an understatement. I've seen the Giants preform so many times that I no longer remember how many. At this point they are one of the groups/performers that I've seen the most. There are three performers that fall into the "Can't remember how many times I've seen them" category: TMBG, Sparks, and Joe Jackson. I've lost track enough that I can't tell you which one I've seen most. Point is, clearly, I love the Giants. As for Jonathan Coulton, I met him last year at Neil (Gaiman)'s 50th birthday bash, and then went on his cruise at the beginning of this year. We saw him perform on the cruise. He was fantastic. On our way to the concert (which was in Anaheim and hence a long car ride away) I got a text from our friend Krystal asking if I was okay, and saying that she was so worried about the girls. This really confused me. Winter was in the car with me and Sky was off at college. I had no idea what she was talking about. I texted back "???" (very clever of me, I thought. I was driving after all). I gave the phone to Winter and asked her to call Scott and see if he knew what she was talking about. Between Winter checking Facebook and Krystal texting with more info, we discovered that Sky was in San Francisco at one of the Occupy protests. For the rest of this story I'm going to tell you things as they happened, despite the fact that I didn't know all this at the time... Sky was with a group from school. I knew that she was going to be doing this, but I thought it was something that they were doing in town. Evidently it was always going to be in SF, but I missed that somehow. Sky was with her best friend who was live tweeting under the handle kendrayukiko (hence Krystal being worried about the "girls"). It was how we all were keeping up with what was going on. A screen shot of Kendra's feed made it onto Boing Boing! Mind you, while this is happening, I'm stuck in traffic. I have our friend Sally sitting next to me, and Winter behind her. Winter is on both my phone and hers; texting people, checking FB and Twitter and talking to Scott. Scott let Kendra's mom know what was going on. Both Scott and I had the same thoughts: as long as she's safe, then, good for her. We were not too worried. Finally I managed to get us to the concert. We were hungry and had a while before the doors opened, so we ate at House of Blues (which is where the concert was being held). Food was good, but I spent the whole meal catching up on the Twitter feed. I was far more enlightened at the end of the meal then when we arrived. Eating there got us the added bonus of getting in the doors early. Winter and I went upstairs and found ourselves a place to sit. Not a very good one, but it was better than it could've been. And sitting. That part was nice. While we were sitting I called Scott and found out that both girls had been arrested. Trying to figure out how to get Kendra released had Scott worried (she's not 18 yet, so was in a different facility). Both girls were fine. Sky was put in a paddy wagon and brought to an outside holding area. When the police questioned her and told her she shouldn't be wearing her sunglasses, she explained that she was blind and needed them to see, and they were instantly apologetic and conscientious. She was treated fine. Her big complaint was that it was cold and the toilet had no privacy. She has all sorts of stories, but the important part is that in the end she was released and there was a bus waiting for her and all the others that had been arrested. There was someone to rescue Kendra and the other underage student as well. Everyone made it home by 11pm safe and sound. Sky has a court date next month. She'll be back home by then, but if it doesn't get cancelled, she was told that she could transfer it to a court here, so we don't need to go back to SF during Winter break. The whole event was well-organized. Meanwhile, back in Anaheim, we (meaning the three of us plus the several people we'd met up with, because we are geeks and our friends are geeks so it's hardly surprising that we would bump into bunches of people we know) were all having a great time at the concert. The biggest complaint was that Jonathan Coulton's set was much too short. He only played for about thirty minutes. Too too short! TMBG was, as usual, also excellent. They got to play for awhile. Their very last song was one of my all-time favorite songs ever. So I was happy. When the concert was over, I went to the merch table and was surprised to find that Jonathan Coulton was hanging out there signing things and getting his picture taken, etc. He recognized me (which is always nice) and we chatted for a bit. I think my favorite moment of the night came when I was talking to him. I asked if he had met Winter (I wasn't sure if he had, since I'd missed much of Neil's infamous party which is where I'd met him. I knew Winter had not been around the other times we'd met). He recognized her. I mentioned that my other daughter had just gotten arrested. His reactions was to look all sad and say, "Drugs?" then, looking a bit less sad, he added, "or protest?". I laughed, and proudly said, "Protest!" To which he replied, "good for her!" Which is exactly how I felt. The next day, the students at UCDavis were pepper sprayed while sitting on campus in protest. Sky goes to a UC school. I thought she was going to be doing something on campus or in town. When I found out she was in SF I was worried, because I knew she'd be safe if she'd be on campus, but in a major city I was was more worried. The protest that Sky took part in was in a bank. They were trespassing. Getting arrested was expected. Sitting on a sidewalk peacefully on campus should've been safe. I don't know why I thought this. I'm old enough to remember Kent State. Sky is fine. Her friends are all fine. I'm really proud of her for taking a stand in something she believes in. It scares me to think that we live in a world where peacefully taking a stand can get you hurt and I'm so glad that she didn't (get hurt). Wednesday had been an awesome day. I had a great time at the concert. The only thing that made me sad is that the reason that Winter got to go (I'm really glad that she did, mind you) is that my friend who was supposed to go stayed home because her father was very sick and in the hospital. On Thursday, Rosalie Lightning, the young daughter of Tom Hart, one of the nicest people I know, and his wife Leela Corman, died in her sleep. I can't even pretend to understand how something so tragic can happen. I don't know anyone who deserves to have something so horrible happen to them, but Tom even less so. (Leela as well, but I've only met her briefly). There's a fund set up to help them deal with the tragedy, if you'd like to help, here's the link to the page. My heart goes out to them both. I'm still numb thinking about this. On Saturday my friend's father, the one in the hospital, died. So, Wednesday? Really good day. Rest of the week. Not so much. Tomorrow I go up to Santa Cruz to pick Sky up and bring her home for Thanksgiving. My siblings are all getting in town Thursday or Friday. We're doing our Turkey on Saturday when we have the whole gang, and then I bring Sky back north on Sunday. My siblings and their families are in town for about a week. We'll celebrate Holly's birthday late, and have big meals and lots of fun. Then they all go away and a few days later Sky will be back for Winter break (we get her a whole month!). I'm not likely to be posting anything between now and Thanksgiving, so here's wishing all of you who celebrate, a very happy Thanksgiving. Regardless of whether or not you celebrate, I'd like to thank you for being in my life. Thank you for reading this blog. It means a lot to me. Thank you for all the comments over this last year. Thank you for telling me that you read this when I've met you. Mostly, thank you for being there and listening (figuratively) when I needed it. My life is better because you are there. Thank you. And for all the people that I know, and the ones that I don't know, that are dealing with the tragedies of this week. I'm so sorry. My thoughts are with you. (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 14th, 2011
2:37 pm	44 hours in Belfast Scott and I went to Belfast last week. I firmly believe that I will keep much of this trip in my memory, but forget when and where the memories belong. It was a very strange trip. On Monday, Scott and I woke up very early and drove to the airport. We had a friend staying to watch over Winter while we were gone (thank you thank you thank you, Sally) and she took Winter to school since we were leaving too early. Despite the traffic delaying us, we still got to the airport with more than enough time to park the car and get ourselves through to the gate. The flight from LA to Chicago was almost a disaster as my seat was in between two large not overly friendly men, with Scott being seated in the middle of the other side of the same row. Full flight. Luckily, the window seat next to Scott didn't show, so I got to sit next to Scott after all. The flight itself was uneventful. I would say that the flight from Chicago to Dublin was uneventful as well, but I might be wrong. See, as we were about to land, someone came on the loudspeaker to confirm that we absolutely had our seat belts on and that we knew where the exits were. I've never had that happen before. This was as we were about to touchdown. When the plane safely touched down the people in the front of the plane all applauded. I have no idea if they knew something we didn't, or what. Whatever. We were fine. And early. Because we were early, we got to the airport and our ride wasn't there yet. I'm sure most of you reading know this already, but I didn't (I'm very geographically impaired) so, just in case... Dublin (where we landed) is in Ireland, which is part of the European Union. Belfast (our destination) is in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is under British rule. Because of this, in Dublin the currency is the Euro. In Belfast the currency is the British pound. Before we left LA, Scott exchanged some money so that we would have pounds when we got where we were going. While we were waiting at the Dublin airport, however, and hoping our ride would show up, we went to get some soda at one of the gift shops. This is where my ridiculous habit of having every currency that we've collected, payed off. I had the euros to buy us what we needed. I was secretly very proud of this (and again later, in Belfast, when Scott forgot to actually give me any of the pounds he'd gotten, but I had the pounds to pay for the few things I bought). Our ride did show up eventually and drove us the ninety minutes to Belfast. I enjoyed the drive. It was the only glimpse of either Irelands' scenery we were going to get. Scott, who had slept much of the plane ride (I'd managed a few hours), slept most of the car ride as well. We arrived at our hotel about 22 hours after we had left our home. (Something I learned: there is no longer a big border crossing between the two countries. There is a sign that tells you you've crossed-I think, I missed it both times-but the way you know for sure which country you're in: Ireland has two official languages, so all signs in Ireland have both Irish and English. In Northern Ireland, it's English only) It was around noonish at this point. The hotel had a bath. I was happy. And then I was clean. Rory, who is responsible for Rory's Story Cubes, had invited us to lunch, and with a bit of fumbling, we managed to connect. He took us to a nearby adorable restaurant where we had good food and great conversation. It was lovely. He then showed us around to some of the places we were going to need to get to for the conference that Scott was speaking at. After our lunch and tour and goodbyes to Rory, Scott and I went and found our host to let him know we had made it. Then it was off to the theatre that Scott was going to be talking in the next night so we could see Erik Spiekermann talk about font design. The talk was very interesting. Unfortunately my jet lag got the best of me for some of it, and I found myself missing bits of the talk here and there, but what I caught, I enjoyed. When the talk was over, Scott and I went off to a pub where Jesse Thorn was having a meet-and-greet. Lots of fun listening to his stories. The only problem was that it was now pretty late, and Scott and I were in need of food again (lunch had been hours earlier). We'd been told that the pub had good food, but it was late enough that they'd stopped serving, which left us hungry. At around 11pm we said our goodbyes and went to our hotel where the restaurant was still serving dinner! Yay! It was pretty late by the time we were done, and we just crashed, intending to get up early the next morning to do some sightseeing. We failed. I think it was after 11am when we finally woke up. Since we'd missed the hotel breakfast we decided to go to where the conference was going on and seeing what was up. What was up was a lot of people in a room doing things that looked interesting, but wasn't the kind of thing that we could watch or join in on. We had found out the day before that at that very venue, which was a large theatre on the waterfront (the conference was using a workshop room in the building) that John Barrowman was performing that night. After much deliberation I decided that it was really okay if I didn't see Scott's talk this time. I had just seen it the previous week, and it's not like I haven't seen him talk hundreds of times. So I bought tickets to see JB's show that night. Because I was alone I was able to get a third row seat. I was at the far end of the row, but, hey Third Row! But the show comes later. At this point in the narrative I've just bought the ticket. From the theatre, Scott and I went to explore the town and get some food. We didn't really make it too far. There was a mall-like thing (collection of stores, with a roof sort of over part of it, it was odd) and they had a Wagamama which some friends of mine had introduced us when we were last in London. Mmmmm good. I highly recommend them. It made for a tasty, though strange breakfast. After food we did some wandering through the mall, but then it started to pour (it was overcast or dark for most of our entire stay). We had about two hours before Scott needed to be at the theatre, and it was pouring, so sightseeing seemed out. There was a movie theatre in the mall, and I suggested that we check it out. Whenever we go out of the country we think about going to movies and then never do. When you have a limited time somewhere, spending it seeing a movie that you can see at home, seems like a bad use of time. But, in this case, our alternative was to hang out in the hotel for a few hours, so we figured we would check what was there and the times. I thought it would be a cool idea, but since we had such a narrow window, I didn't think we would have luck. Wow, was I wrong. It turns out, Tintin opened there weeks ago (it's not opening here until next month!), and there was a showing just about to start (we missed most of the pre-show stuff). I really liked the movie. It's co-written by Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright (and Joe Cornish, who I don't know). Scott didn't like it as much as I did, but I think that was for two reasons: 1) he knows the comics better than I do, so he's more apt to be disappointed. 2) He clearly didn't catch everything. There was one moment that I loved, it was a throwaway thing, but it cracked me up. I heard nothing from Scott. Last night I asked him if he'd noticed it, and he admitted that he'd missed it completely. I'm blaming jet-lag. The movie is fun, funny, and I loved the voices. It has a bit of that uncanny valley stuff going for it (it's 3-D computer graphic animation), but it didn't bother me all that much. There are lots of little in joke types of things. I get the feeling that I'll pick up all sorts of things when I see it again with the kids, when it opens here in the states. And I will see it again when it opens in the states. So, on the Ivy scale: Definitely one to see again. It might not be for everyone. I figure if you like the trailer, you'll like the movie. After the movie we were off to Scott's talk. When I got there, Scott introduced me to the guys who are responsible for the Grimace Project and we started talking about applications of the project to people with Asperger Syndrome. They would like to improve it for people who need it, but they don't know what's needed. If you or anyone you know is or would like to use it that way and would like to give them pointers, then please let me know, and I can get you in touch with each other. They would love to have the input. I hung out to watch the beginning of Scott's talk (standing room only crowd) and then left to go see John Barrowman (as I was leaving there were more people on their way in. Talk about a full house!). I had a great time at the concert. JB has gobs of personality and just owns the stage. The music was mostly stuff from my childhood, some I loved, some I hated, but he pulled it all off. He had four back up dancers/singers and an eight piece band. There was a woman who was very talented that did some songs so that JB could take a break mid show. The show ran almost three hours with a twenty minute interval so breaks were needed. He flirted with everyone. The band, the back up singers the guest, the audience, everyone. The audience was mostly women with a few gay men and some spouses who looked somewhat confused. The old ladies cracked me up, they were having a blast. I don't know that the audience would've been the same in the states. I was proud that there were all sorts of things that he talked about or songs that he sung that I knew for all sorts of different reasons. The show was geared for a British crowd and I think many Americans would've not gotten a bunch of things. And he played a song (actually, I think his back up singers might have sung it) that I love love love. I didn't know it came from Eurovision, I know and love it because I lived in London for a year when it was a hit, and it was great to hear it again, and to be among people who know this silly song that I loved! Yay my youth! He talked about being at ComicCon, and I was good and resisted shouting at the stage that I had been there. I had a blast. I'm really glad I went. When the concert was over, Scott was waiting outside for me. (he worries about me being alone in unfamiliar places late at night. There's no need for him to, but it's sweet, so...) We went back to the pub where the conference was having their pub quiz. We stayed for a bit, said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel, realizing that it was now after midnight and we'd only had the one meal. The hotel restaurant is open late, but not that late. But they do have room service all night. I had cheese on toast for dinner. It was the best food I'd eaten possibly all year. Oh my god was that good. Irish cheddar is a favorite of mine (second only to swiss) and it was on an english muffin (a real english muffin, the kind without nooks and crannies). So. Very. Good. And that was our trip to Belfast. The next morning we got up very early, had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, a car got us and drove us the ninety minutes to the airport where we hung out until our flight. I bought jelly babies and some chocolate for the girls, and we came home. When we got home Winter was watching episodes of the TV show Soap (I had introduced it to her right before we left, and now she's obsessed) and I joined her for a bit. We finally went to bed at about 1:30am our time. I hadn't slept more than ten or fifteen minutes in the last 30 hours. I went to bed and woke up less than four hours later so that I could pick up Sky who was bussing in from school for the weekend. I spent a substantial part of the weekend driving Sky places. But I did manage to get to see two movies. One with a friend, and one with Scott and Sky. On Saturday, I met up with my friend Theresa who I don't see very often, and we did dinner and a movie. We went to see Immortals which was about what I expected it to be. Not a good movie by any standard, but I had fun. It was a bit too violent for me. There's a tendency these days to make movies ultra-violent because they can. I wish they wouldn't. Though I enjoyed it in many ways and I'm glad I saw it, I don't really need to see it again. If there had been less violence, that opinion might be different. It's definitely on the forgettable list. As in, I'm sure that if you asked me next year at this time if I'd seen the movie, I'm likely to not remember, and if I remember that I've seen it, I probably wouldn't be able to tell you anything about it. But while watching, I had fun (well, except for all the parts I couldn't look at). Yesterday, Scott, Sky and I went to see Like Crazy. I liked it, I guess. I love Anton Yelchin, he's always awesome. And it amused me how there were three different actors in the movie from three different fandoms that I'm currently obsessed with (Yelchin is in the new Star Trek movies, the actress who played Raven in the new X-Men movie, and the actress who is River Song from the recent Dr. Who were all in the movie). It was a rather melancholy movie and in the end I realized that there was no ending that could make me feel good about the whole thing. I guess the one they picked was as good as any. I left feeling unsettled. The camera work played a part in that as well. We were always really close to everyone. I had no sense of where anything was. I really noticed it. Enough that it took me out of the movie. I spent much of time wishing the camera would pull back and show us the whole picture, instead of paying attention to what was happening with the characters on the screen. Sky liked it much more than I did. Not sure where Scott fell. I know he didn't like it nearly as much as Sky. Glad I saw it. Don't need to see it again. Great cast. And there you have my last week. It was a strange trip overseas, but I had a great time. I saw a movie and a concert that I loved and couldn't see here (well, I'll see the movie here, but not for several weeks). I met cool people. There was serendipity. There was magic. I might not remember that these things all happened in Belfast, but I will remember that all these things happened. One day Scott and I will go back to Belfast for more than a day, and we'll do the things we thought we were going to do, or didn't have the time to do this time. I appreciated the trip so much more during the weekend when I spent most of my time making sure that other people were happy (not the movie parts of the weekend, the rest of it) and driving driving driving. Last night Sky went back to school. Winter is in school for this week then she has all of next week off. Life continues to be very busy. Every now and again, it gets strange and wonderful and awesome. I might not be online as much as I'd like to be. And sometimes life is all about doing for others and not having a moment for myself. But life feels worth living when the magic happens and you're in the right place at the right time to do something you hadn't planned on doing and it's all just...magic. (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 4th, 2011
10:26 am	It's amazing how much you can do in a weekend if you really put your mind to it. This past weekend was one of those weekends which, when it was all over and you look back on it, you just think, "wow, I did all that?!" Admittedly, part of it was that, for me, the weekend lasted four days, so I guess that helped. We did stuff! So you get a bunch of reviews of a whole lot of cool things, most of which you won't be able to see. Um...sorry? Friday is New Movie Day and this past Friday the movie In Time opened. I really wanted to see it, but no one else in the family did, so I snuck off to a matinee while Winter was in school and Scott was at work. Here is my relatively spoiler free review: Scott was under the impression that I wanted to see it because Matt Bomer was in it. This is not true. I saw the trailer and thought, "ooo, this looks cool. Wait. Is that Matt Bomer? It is! Wow, even cooler!" From the trailer I also knew that he wasn't going to have a very big part. I was right. I liked the movie. I didn't love it, but I had a good time. The biggest thing about the movie is that you can't think about it. During the movie, I would stop myself and just think, "let it go, let it go" because I knew if I stopped to think about it, a whole lot of things would not make any sense. It's an allegory for what's going on in our economy and it's interesting (to me anyway) as such. But... the actual sf/f elements to it make no sense. There are all these loopholes. Like, Why is this the way the world works? Is this supposed to be us in the future? I could go on, but some of my questions would be spoilers, and there are a lot of them. Basically, if you're willing to suspend your disbelief, then it can be a fun movie. It's not a great movie, but it is a fun one. I was also impressed by the fact that I didn't hate the semi bad guy. I like it when you can see more than one side of a conflict, Cillian Murphy did a really good job. I'm glad I saw it. Probably best that I saw it alone, as I don't know that any member of my family would've enjoyed it as much as I did. Friday night was Game Night. Small, but fun. Saturday Night, Scott, Winter and I decided to see the choral show at Winter's high school. [There are only a few days left to vote for them in the Glee contest. If I haven't mentioned it here, or I did, and you didn't check it out, please do now. Voting is only open until the 7th, you can vote once every day. If they win the money, they want to buy a nice piano. I just checked, they've moved all the way down to 6th place right now, so they could really use your vote (they had been in at least 4th place for a while). End PSA] The choral show was wonderful. I am in awe of the talent there. There were several different choruses performing and they were all great. The show started with part of the first chorus standing in the theatre in front of the audience, they sang a few lines and then the rest of the group came slowly down the aisles singing until they filled the whole house. It sent chills. Really beautiful. And that wasn't even the group on the Glee vid. All the groups were great and the Jazz Choir (which is the one in the vid) performed several songs including the Coldplay song. So. Very. Good. I would tell everyone they should go see the show, but there were only two performances and we saw the second one. I highly recommend going to see next semester's show if you live around here. There's always something in every show to blow you away. The show was made even better by the fact that when we went to buy tickets, the person selling them had just gotten some back and decided to give us ours, so we hadn't even paid! Then we went to grab a very quick dinner at KFC, where we wound up getting free food! (not all of it, just a little). Then we went to the $3.00 movie theatre to see One Day which I had wanted to see. I think I liked it more than Scott, I know Winter liked it, but I'm not sure how much? It wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be. I was expecting more Same Time Next Year, and it wasn't. STNY is about a couple who meet once a year on the same day and we see a few of those days, but not all. One Day was about what these two people do on this day every year. They see each other at other times, but we only see a tiny bit of each year. I think this one did not get great reviews. I don't know if this is true. I rarely read reviews (they always give away too much of the plot). Scott said the biggest complaint was that the book was better (Scott does read reviews). That doesn't surprise me. That's frequently the case. I didn't read the book, so I could enjoy it. Again, I liked the characters. Even the ones that are not shown in the best light. For both movies that I saw this week, I found myself thinking about them later. If I do that, then it means I got something out of them. The true Ivy Test is if I would go see it again. I think both movies fall into the I-Would-Gladly-Go-With-You-To-See-This-Movie-Again category, as opposed to the I-Love-This-Movie-So-Much-I-Plan-On-Seeing-Again-Even-If-I-Have-To-Go-Alone category (there's also the I-Will-See-This-Over-And-Over-And-If-I'm-Not-Given-It-For-Birthmas-I-Will-Just-Bloody-Well-Buy-It-My-Self category but that's a special one). We had a very cool Saturday. Sunday night, Scott and I left Winter at home (her choice, we weren't being mean) and we went to the local haunted event Reign Of Terror (this was the night before halloween, remember). I had no idea what to expect. There used to be this theatrical thing that I'd go to every year which was put on by the local Kids/teen theatre company. I loved those shows. They were mostly teen actors and I would marvel at what they did. They've stopped doing them, but the Reign of Terror is sponsored by the same people, so I thought maybe they'd just moved to this new location since they'd long since lost the old one. This was not the case. This was a haunted house. The special effects and set design were incredibly creepy and I was amazed at all that went into it. But, there was no story, and no theme. It was just a lot of rooms that you went through, almost maze like, and in every room someone/thing would pop up at you or make a loud noise or give you the evil eye. I had fun screaming. I wasn't really scared, though frequently startled. What fun is it for the actors if people don't scream?! So I did. I think Scott was amused at me. When we were waiting on line, we were told that nothing would touch you. Once you knew this, it kinda took the fear away. I had a great time, and I'm really glad we went, but I liked the old theatrical performance/scary thing they used to do better. And the line to get in had been so long that when we were out and went to the other haunted event we had wanted to do, it was too late. Ah well, there's always next year. Monday was Halloween day. Winter dressed up for school as winter. The season. That night she went trick-or-treating with a friend. She turned her winter costume into a Corpse Bride costume. I love her brain. While Winter was off with her friend, Scott and I ventured into Los Angeles where Neil (Gaiman) and Amanda (Palmer) were premiering their show together. The concert was part of a Kickstarter so there were people who had contributed money to it. They got perks, like a meet and greet with Neil and Amanda before the show. Because we were friends, we got be included with the early part of the event. Things got started much later than they were supposed to. But eventually we were all brought in to the theatre and got to watch the sound check. After that they took us to this area backstage so that people could meet and talk to Neil and Amanda. We got to say hi, but for the most part talked to other friends of Neil's since we didn't want to be in the way of the people who paid money to meet them. Then it was time for the show. It was the first time they had done the show and they did a costume contest beforehand (the prize went to two very awesomely creepy rabbits with fezzes. I was glad they won. They really creeped me out. *shudder*). Once the show actually started it was much later than planned. Unfortunately they HAD to be out of the theatre by a certain time, so in the end, a bunch of stuff that they'd planned to do had to be skipped. The only reason I knew this for sure was because things they said they were going to do at the sound check didn't happen, and then I confirmed it with Neil after the show. I don't think anyone watching the show would have known. The show flowed seamlessly from one thing to the next. Amanda sang songs. Neil read short stories. Neil sang songs. The two of them sat and answered questions from the audience. A surprise song that Amanda sang to Neil for his birthday. More songs. More stories. And then a standing ovation followed by a short encore. Most of the stories and songs were familiar to me. I loved the stories that were told before things. Neil sings much better than he thinks he does (I loved his songs) and Amanda's new Ukulele song is great, possibly made better by the ukulele drama that proceeded it. All in all a wonderful night. After the show we met up with people we knew, which is always fun (before the show we spent most of our time with the woman who did the DVD extras for Coraline, we'd not met her before and had fun sharing stories). We talked for a long while (if you're reading this: you guys really should come to Game Night! Seriously) until Neil and Amanda's line was done, then we were beckoned back stage where we got a few minutes alone with Neil. Which felt like old times. It's been awhile. Life's been busy. The last time I spent any time with Neil in a small setting was during his birthday party last year. He had lots of people there he needed to be spending time with, and I was too busy freaking out because Scott was in the hospital so it wasn't exactly quality time. When Neil's birthday happens this year, Scott and I will be in Ireland (well, mostly we'll be in the air coming back from Ireland). I don't expect I'll manage to wish him a happy then, so I'm doing it now. Happy birthday Neil! I hope it's wonderful. And I truly hope that I have a happier Neil's birthday this year than I did last. Last year, at Neil's party, the highlight for me was meeting John Hodgman an Jonathan Coulton and seeing Ellen Kushner again. In a weird bit of something, Ellen was almost in our area last weekend. We didn't get out there to see her, which made me sad. Neil and Amanda came closer, and we got to see them. Tonight, John Hodgman is speaking in LA, and we are sadly missing that (a friend of ours will be there, hopefully she'll say hi for us) and right after we get back from Ireland I'm going with some friends to see Jonathan Coulton opening up for They Might Be Giants. It's like we were all in the same area a year ago, and now they're all coming here. There was no point to that last paragraph other than I thought it was interesting. Chances are, I'm the only one who does. Sorry. On Tuesday Scott spoke at LACC (Los Angeles City College). The building next to the one he was speaking in was called Holmes Hall. I know Sherlock is a fictional character and the building likely has nothing to do with him, but I'm obsessed with all things Sherlock these days, so it made me happy. Unfortunately the building was closed, and it would have been bad form to try to sneak in, so its depths shall remain a mystery to me. The talk went well. Scott's talks are always evolving and always interesting. You get a chance to see him, you really should. So that was my weekend. Or five days. Or whatever. It took five days to live, and three days to write about it. And now we are back to Friday and I likely have a busy weekend ahead, followed immediately by a trip out of the country. Today, is November 4th. It's my sister Pam's birthday (was her birthday?). I don't believe in heaven, I don't really believe in life after death, but I wish I did so that I could believe that she was in a better place. This last year has been one hell of a year. But Pammy, if you can hear me, I hope you're happy. I'm thinking about you. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011
10:41 pm	On being an extrovert I'm a social person. I forget that sometimes, but I really am. You know those Myers Briggs personality tests? when I take them, most of my scores are in the middle area. I'm a bit more one thing than another, but that can change depending on the mood I'm in or which version of the test, etc. The only thing that never changes is the introvert/extrovert scale. That one I always score as a extrovert. If I'm really depressed, I might score lower on it than if I'm not, but it will still be extrovert. Scott is more of an introvert, but as we've been together and as his job has entailed more socializing, his rating has changed and he's become more extroverted (I don't remember which one it is anymore, but there was a different quality that Scott has very high on his test, that I've picked up on. I think it has to do with spending so much time together, you just get more like each other). When Scott and I first got married, hmm, maybe we were just living together, whichever, it was a long time ago, we used to have one night every week that we called Stupid TV Night. It was whatever night Duet and Love and War (I think those were the two shows, I know it was Duet) were on. Our friends Caroline and Clarence would come over and we'd all watch stupid TV together. We loved the shows, we just made fun of ourselves for doing so. Anyway, after the shows the gals would talk, and the guys would play chess. We did this every week until the shows were cancelled. Later, Clarence and Scott would go off places and play chess while Caroline and I would hang out. It was a ritual. I just realized, that though there have been some breaks, Scott and I have had this sorts of ritual for our entire marriage.( To save those reading this on their friends list, I'm putting the rest of the post behind this cut ) (23 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
8:27 pm	Some thoughts As I'm sure you all know, I'm married to someone who makes comics for a living. When I work (which is not much these days) I do a completely different kind of art; I do theatre. Theatre requires other people. Comics do not. Scott and I spend a lot of time talking about this. My schedule, when I'm working on a show, is dictated by many factors. I'm totally at the mercy of others. Scott, however, sets his own schedule. Right now, he's working on a very long book. Scott was given a long time to do this book, but even though he got the first draft done early, he wound up rewriting the book several times. And that took time. Lots of time. It was always going to take a long time to complete, but now Scott's gone into what I call Panic Work Mode. This means that Scott works All the time. No. Really. All the time. He works eleven hours a day, seven days a week. This happens every book. It happened every few weeks in the Zot! days. When he did Understanding Comics it worked out very well. When he hit that stage I was no longer working, and was either spending my time going through infertility stuff, or being pregnant. So I had free time. I hung out at home and read to Scott as he drew. Months and months of us hanging out and reading together while he worked. (I was his Books on Tape). Then the book was done. It came out about the same time as our first daughter, Sky, and everything changed. The next big book that he worked on (there had been bunches of other projects that few other than us remember) was Reinventing Comics. When he went into Panic Work Mode with that book he was working in a studio in the house and he tried to take some time out, have dinner with us or something. There were two kids by then and mostly I remember finding ways for the girls and I to get out of the house for the day to give him quiet time to work on weekends and such. Our Disney passes were a great investment. By the time he was working on Making Comics (which might be my favorite of the three, and I have no idea why I don't hear people talk about it as much as the other two) he had moved to a studio outside the house. This meant that when he went into Panic Work Mode we just didn't see him. The promise had been that we would deal with his crazy schedule, and then, when the book was done, we would go on the road for a year, the four of us together. We'd go from barely seeing him, to seeing him all the time. And we did. The year on the road might be my favorite of our almost 25 years together. This time, it all feels different. First off, the book he's working on now is longer than the others were, and since he wants to catch up time, he's gone into PWM much earlier. He still has a studio out of the apartment. He's working from 8am to 7pm every day. Every. Day. The only time he's not, is when he goes off to do a talk somewhere, and then he's just gone. He tries to make the trips as short as possible so that he can be back to working quickly. [Which explains why I just found out that the trip we're taking to Ireland next month(!) is incredibly short. I don't usually get to go, but I am this time, sadly though it was set up as a quick trip. We are on the ground in Ireland, a place I've never been but always wanted to go to, for about 50hrs.] This particular bout of PWM will last upwards of a year and a half. That is likely all the time we have left with Winter before she graduates high school and goes off to college. Sky left last month. Last week was April for us. In April, when taxes were due, Sky was busy turning 18 and life was hectic and we filed for a 6 month tax extension. That extension ends in a couple of weeks, so that meant that it was tax time in casa de us. And that meant that Scott would work for 11 hours, come home and start working on taxes. I tried to help, but I'm pretty useless. Scott has a system and there isn't much that he needs me for. All this to say that it's been a rather tense week or so. When 24 Hour Comic Day rolled around last weekend, I felt kinda sad that we weren't doing anything for it. One year we had gone all the way up the coast visiting places that had events. We were up all night, and it was awesome. We haven't done anything like that in ages. This year, we started the official day (well, started as in noon o'clock) by going out to see a movie. Amusingly, Scott, the inventor of the 24 Hour Comic, and Nat Gertler, the inventor of 24 Hour Comic Day, our friend Robynne, Winter and I all went to see 50/50. Might have been more appropriate if we'd seen One Day but oh well, there were still numbers and it's ironic in my mind anyway. I really liked the movie. It's made me cry and made me laugh even more, and I really liked the dog. While we were at the theatre, Winter and I saw the one-sheet (ie: poster) for What's Your Number (more numbers!), and decided that we wanted to see that. We already had tickets to see a matinee of a kids' show later that day, along with tickets to see the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Gondoliers that we both knew people in for the evening. It was looking at the poster that I came up with my brilliant idea, that, since Scott was going to be spending 24HCD working, I should do something crazy to celebrate the day. I bet you can figure out where this is going, right? Winter and I saw 50/50, then we went to the kids' show, Attack of the Giant Grasshoppers then we rushed to a different movie theatre and saw their showing of What's Your Number, then back to the sam theatre that Grasshoppers was performing at, and went to see The Gondoliers. Ivy's Patented Quickie Reviews: 50/50: See above. Attack of the Giant Grasshoppers: If you know one of the kids in it, you will probably enjoy it. There were some cute performances. I wish people didn't stand in straight lines so much. I will not tell you what I thought of the script since that is not their fault. Why they picked that show will remain a mystery to me. Stupidity bothers me, regardless of what age the show is geared at. I was not the target audience. What's Your Number: One of the main reasons I wanted to see it was because Martin Freeman was in it, and clearly, I will watch ANYTHING he is in. I enjoyed the movie. It's not a good movie, and if you don't like formulaic romance/comedies then don't waist your time. There were some fun moments. I have what I call an "Embarrassment Squick". When a scene is a particular type of embarrassing, I can't watch. It's why I don't like many popular movies and tv shows of the day. This movie had about ten minutes that were really hard for me to watch. Sadly, most of them were the scene with Martin Freeman. *sigh* The Gondoliers: It was a pretty good production. Sadly, it had the problem that all of the productions I've seen with this group has: the romantic leads, we are told, are in their early twenties. But the people that are cast in the roles: the guys are in their 40/50's and the girls are teenagers. I have a problem with this. I guess it's another squick of mine. The singing is beautiful, and all the people I know in the show always do a great job, but I have trouble suspending my disbelief. After the operetta I hung out and talked to some friends of mine, one who was in the show, and another couple who had been in the audience. We have all done many shows together and we know lots of the same people. So we got to gossip for awhile. I was reminded of how much I love the people I know in the theatre, and how much I miss doing it. I was yelled at for not even trying to do any theatre lately. Oh well. Back home, Scott had worked a long day, gotten home and was now ready for bed. So far, Winter and I had seen 2 movies and 2 plays. She was giving up, but I was determined to soldier on. I failed. I had wanted to experience two of every media I could think of. Before he went to bed, Scott played me a podcast, but I never got to hear a second one. I watched two episodes of Dr. Who (I'm still not caught up: no spoilers, please), and I did a little reading. But around 4am I was just too tired and the 3rd episode Dr Who was not making sense, so I figured I should crash. I woke up 4 hours later, but didn't do much during the day other than have meals and a visit with my folks (my dad's not doing well). I picked mostly media that was unlike comics in that it required lots of people to create whatever it was. Meanwhile, while I was media-ing, Scott was in his studio plugging away at his book. It will be over a year before he's done with it. It's over 400 pages long, and it takes awhile to draw a page. He's promised that when he's done, we'll go on the road touring it and that will be fun. Except that the book he's working on was part of a two book deal. When this one's done, he has to do another one right away. The second book can be about anything he wants, but it has to be nonfiction. He has lots of ideas as to what it could be, but when we were in Australia I figured out what it should be. I know I'm right. I intend to push him into (it's not a hard push, I think he knows I'm right). If I get my way, and he does the book I want him to do, then it's hard for me to predict which of the two books will be more important. They are both their own kind of awesome. Meanwhile, Monday night, Derek Kirk Kim, who is perhaps the nicest person I've ever met, had a showing of the whole first season of his webseries Mythomania. Scott and I went to LA to the cute theatre to see the show. The first season lasts just over an hour and I think Derek plans on uploading the rest of the episodes soon, so now's a good time to check it out. Most of the cast and crew were at the showing. It impressed me how much he was able to do with so little. There was a Q&A after the screening and the part that stood out for me, was Derek talking about how much control he had, and the parts of it that were and weren't like making comics. Comics are something you can create all by yourself with very few tools. Making a movie/tv show takes a lot more, but if you are Derek Kirk Kim, you can pull off a lot with very little. I'm married to a cartoonist. I don't see him very often when he's busy. I've gotten used to doing things by myself. I make plans expecting to be alone and then get pleasantly surprised when he decides he can join me. I just found out that the local movie theatre with an IMAX screen is participating in the promo thing going on, and they're showing Star Trek tonight. I think I'll go. Probably, I'll go alone. I'm okay with that. Scott has a lot of work to do. In a few years we'll probably have another year that we get to spend together. That'll be awesome. Until then, I'll do stuff with Winter or my friends or alone and Scott will work. I missed a lot of things back when I spent most of my time waiting. I try not to miss as much as I used to. Scott loves his job. When we get to the age that most people retire I can guarantee that Scott won't. He won't want to. He loves his work and has no intention of ever stopping doing what he loves. I guess, by the time we get to that age, the girls will be gone and Scott and I will be alone, and I can sit and read to him. Just like we used to do. Wow. Full circle.. As I'm writing this, word just came that Steve Jobs died. I'm now feeling very sad. I always thought that one day, perhaps, I might get to meet him and tell him how much his work meant to me. I'm typing this blog on my MacBook Pro. Sitting next to me is my iPhone. On the other side of me, on my bedside table, my iPod is hooked up to speakers and a clock. I do no go anywhere without at least one, and frequently all, of these things. To say that my life was changed by Steve Jobs is a vast understatement. Goodnight Mr. Jobs. Thank you. And now I'm off to go see Star Trek on a big screen. Because it makes me happy. (20 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
9:01 pm	What I did on my summer vacation (or why I've not been around and omg, so much has happened) I think I'm back. So much has happened this summer. Part of me was thinking of doing several posts talking about each big thing, but I have a feeling that would only interest me. Enough time has passed that I think many of the Big Events have been condensed in my memory that I can give salient points and the big picture, without being too bogged down in minutia. I guess the biggest thing that happened this summer is that we moved. Not very far, just a town over; actually we're less then a mile from the border of the old town, so really not far (4 miles?). The old place (which we loved, mind you) was raising our rent, and Sky was going to be moving off to college, so we decided that it was time. I figure this is good practice for our Two Year Plan, which, I guess, in a way, is starting now, since the next move will likely be in two years, when Winter is done with school. The thing about the move is that we did it in less than a month. That's less than a month from when we got word that our rent was being raised and we thought, "Hmm, maybe we should move" to when we were no longer living in our old place. The whole month was a whirlwind. Went something like this: They raised our rent. We decided to move. We spent three days looking. Found a place. I went to a Star Trek convention thingy and had a great time. I came back. We said "we'll take This One" and told the old place we were leaving. They asked if we could be out two weeks earlier as they had someone who would take the place. We said okay. We started packing. Decided that we would use the money we saved (by getting out early) to hire movers. I went to Carson City (with my friend and fellow curler, Carol) to watch our curling team's skip get married (what an adorable couple, much fun at the wedding). Got back and packed. Three days later we started moving things into the new place. Two days after that the movers did their thing and we started sleeping in the new place. A little more than a week later we were finally out. Our last day was a Friday. There were people at our house for Game Night and I was taking Sky and some friends to Orange County to see Bob Dylan (I didn't see the show, just drove). Got back home, dropped everyone off and went back to the old place to help Scott put the finishing touches on it. The whole thing was rather nerve-wracking actually. I love my idea of the Two Year Plan. The one part I'm not looking forward to at all, however, is the moving every two years. We really need to get rid of massive amounts of stuff if we have any hopes of making it work. So, Saturday morning, bright and early, we gave back our keys. Then on Monday, Sky and I went to Santa Cruz for Freshman Orientation. We drove up the scenic route and had a lovely time. Tuesday was the orientation and Sky got to enroll in classes and talk to people. She also had a very long meeting with the Disability Resource Center and got services all set up, so all in all, a really good day. The problem came in the middle of the night when I suddenly was very sick. My guess is something to do with the heat? I don't know, I just know I was really really sick. This made the drive on Wednesday not a lot of fun. But drive we did. From Santa Cruz we drove to the new place (about a five/six hour drive), where we picked up Scott, Winter, our friend Robynne, and our other friend Barry (Hereville) Deutsch and drove to San Diego (another three/four hours) for ComicCon. If I'd been feeling better, I think I would've enjoyed it a lot more than I did. The drive I mean. Normally I do multiple posts about Con. I'm not going to do that this time. Instead you get a mini report: Scott deemed this year one of the forgettable ones. It wasn't bad, just not much exciting happened. I don't completely agree. I had three things happen, that I think I'll remember for a very long time: Thing One: I had someone come up to me to say hi. Someone I only knew because she's commented on this blog. She made my day by being; A) a cool person: she was even wearing my favorite Scott Pilgrim shirt! (Favorite as in of the several I own it's my favorite) in fact I'd almost worn it that day (I wondered if she was aware that Mal- Bryan Lee O'Malley- walked up to our group while we were talking.) And B) actually excited to meet me, and called herself a fan! This was seriously cool. Thank you. Thing Two: Kathy Li, Sky and I were sitting around talking. I seem to spend quite a bit of my time at Con sitting and talking to Kathy Li (I was ego surfing the other day and found a comment Kathy had posted on UserNet that if you wanted to find her at Con, just look for me, since we'd likely be together: that comment was over a decade old!). Aaaanyway, we were, as is our want, reminiscing about Cons gone by, and someone overheard us and asked if she could interview us for the ComicCon website. We said sure! And so we were. I have no idea what we sounded like, if we came off looking dorky or great or what. I don't know if they got anything they want to/will use. I haven't really looked (too afraid, honestly). But I can pretend that they used it, and it was a lot of fun being interviewed, so yay us! Thing Three: Well, actually, I'm not going to tell you thing three. Thing three was a panel that I went to. It makes much too good a story and is far too long for me to go into here. Plus, if I told it, I would be being not too nice to someone I don't know, and that seems yucky to me. When I tell people that I went to the panel, they look horrified and ask if I'm crazy. But see, the thing is, I got to see it! Now, I get to regale people with the story of a panel that I will not soon forget. If you see me in person, and are actually interested, I will be glad to give you my interpretation of said unforgettable panel. I spent most of Con at panels this year, and I think they were again pretty much all comics related. The only one I remember that wasn't ALL comics was the GLBT X-Men panel, which was mostly about the comic, but had the writer of First Class there as well. That was a great panel. Wish I'd not missed as much of it as I did. So that was Con: The Short Version. I've left out lots of stuff (Seeing Captain America with Larry Marder, Charles Brownstien, and their friend who I really liked, but who's name I've misplaced, the fantastic Scholastic Book party, seeing panels, friends, meals... so many other things). Not the most memorable Con, but lots of fun anyway. We got home from Con on Monday night, and on Wednesday night, Winter and I took the redeye to NYC where she turned 16 on the first of August. For her birthday I was going to do a whole long post about her oh-so-memorable-birth, about what my family did for our 16th birthdays', and why, and about what Winter and I did in NYC. But I'm keeping this short, so: Winter and I went to New york. We were there for about a week. We saw some friends. My sister joined us for a few days and we did a memorial thing for our other sister. And mostly, Winter and I saw shows. We saw: Catch Me if You Can, Billy Elliot, Fantasticks, and Wicked. Winter's favorite was Catch Me if You Can, possibly because that one was a total surprise to her, she had no idea what it was about, whereas she'd seen some sort of version of all the others. Except for Wicked she stood at the stage door and managed to get a picture of herself and whoever had been her favorite performer in each show. As celebrations go, I think it was a success. I know I had a blast. When we got home on Wednesday, it was to the new apartment, unlike the rest of the family, I'd only spent a handful of nights there, it was somewhat disconcerting. We threw a housewarming party a week and a piece later on a Friday. On the following Tuesday the apartment finally got internet (too long a story for this post). Later that day, Scott and I were gone again (did you notice that I managed to take a trip with every single member of my family, as well as one with all of us and one by myself. I didn't notice till I wrote this. That's pretty cool). This time off to Australia! Australia was a blur of a trip. We left here late Tuesday night, arrived there Thursday morning (no Wednesday for us!). Luckily we bumped into Jim and Mary Woodring in the airport. We got spend time with them, something we haven't done in a very long time. They'd been to Australia before and knew some things to do. Which is how we wound up on a ferry to Manly Beach. I know this shouldn't have amused me, but it really did. Especially the Manly Fast Ferry (which we did not take), and before I figured out that we were going to a place called Manly Beach. (yes, I am twelve). We had a great time wandering around Manly Beach with Jim and Mary. After we got back the four of us found some dinner nearby. Friday, Scott and I spent with just us. We wound up walking through the gardens (amazing. And the bats. I love bats. They were beyond awesome), then to an art museum that we spent several hours at. Scott had several interviews and then there was a dinner with all the speakers. The dinner was in one of the restaurants in the Sydney Opera House. And that is where we spent the rest of our trip to Australia. Seriously. We had dinner in the very nice restaurant. The festival was Saturday and Sunday. Scott did a workshop in the conference type room (gorgeous room) on Saturday, then we went to as many things as we could. Scott did his lecture on Sunday. Both of Scott's things were wonderful, but then that's not surprising. Seeing as many other people talk as we could means that we got to see something in everyone of the five theatres in the Opera House. We never did get the tour (so we'll have to come back) but we heard lots of stories. We even got to hang out in the green room (omg, is that huge!). It was a great weekend, lots of cool people, really interesting talks, music, art, I can't say enough good things about it. I'm so glad we got to go. Sadly, since Scott has a book to draw, we didn't have any extra time to spend, so we left bright and early Monday morning (getting back home several hours before we left). Winter started back to school two days later (the girls did not come with us to Australia, maybe next time). It was a frantic rush to make sure that she had everything she needed. I spent the next few weeks driving Winter to school and then driving Sky places so that she could say goodbye to everyone and acquire all she needed for living away from home. Sky and I had adventures: We took a sunset sailboat ride, we spent a day at a museum, we watched movies, and Sky had going away events. There was one for Game Night, one for my folks and one for her friends. Then, this past week, we picked Winter up right after school on Thursday, got three of Sky's friends (including her boyfriend), Scott, Sky and I and all seven of us drove up to Santa Cruz together. Once there we met up with Sky's best friend, Kendra, who's also going to UCSC, and her dad. We moved the girls in, toured the campus, met a professor (and fan of Scott's), had food and said goodbye. Our friend Robynne was also in town, so we got to see her as well. Of the seven in the car that I'd taken up, only Sky and I had ever been to the school, so we enjoyed showing the others things. Kendra's dad was an alumni of UCSC so he got to play tour guide. We drove up on Thursday, spent Friday getting the girls settled in, all had breakfast together Saturday morning (there were 12 of us since Sky's roommates joined), and then had two tearful goodbyes. It was all rather sad. We drove home Saturday afternoon sans Sky, though we still had three of her friends. That was Saturday. Sunday I spent with my mom and Winter. Yesterday I didn't do much of anything (well, I did do a bit of the bills that needed doing...). My doctor is concerned about my blood pressure, so I've been going in for BP tests. had one last week, one yesterday and another tomorrow. Next week I meet with the doctor and he gets to tell me that I'm fine, really. And today. Today I spent writing this post. No seriously. That's about all I did. Sorry it's so long. I honestly left stuff out, I forgot all about my brother and his family coming to town and what we did, I didn't talk about all the movies I saw (I think X-Men First Class wins as I saw it at least four times), and so many other things. But, I'm back now. That. Is what I did on my summer vacation. It's somehow quieter without Sky around, and I miss her. We listened to Wait..Wait...Don't Tell Me on our way back from dropping Sky off at school. There were a few jokes that I laughed at and looked to Sky, since they were ones that pinged back to conversations we'd had, and she wasn't there. Even though there were five other people in the van, none of them got the jokes. In that moment, it started to sink in. This is my first child to leave home. I'm surprisingly okay with it, but then again, I think I've not processed it all yet. I'm sure there was more to say, but this has gone on far long enough. I promise that the next post's wait and length will not be nearly as long. I've missed you all. (23 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
6:54 pm	Hi! I'm not really here! Ok, so I'm at Starbucks. We've moved. I've done all sorts of traveling and have all sorts of cool things I want to write about, but... I don't do well in Starbucks. Music is too loud I can't think. Then there are the two girls (girls as in young 20s?) that have been talking non stop since I got here (boys/relationships/omg they are so young...or I'm so old...). We STILL don't have internet. It is kinda driving me crazy but I've spent hours on the phone with people and we should (I hope) be getting online finally on Tuesday. Just in time for Scott and I to fly off to Australia. No, really just in time. We get hooked up in the morning and fly out in the evening. Hence, there is no way that I'll officially be back until after we get back from Australia. *sigh* The reason I'm breaking radio silence (however briefly) is because I thought this would be the best way to get ahold of everyone. We are throwing what is likely, with such short notice, to be a rather lame House Warming this Friday. And I have very few of the addresses I wanted to get the word out. If you are a friend, local, want to come, and didn't get an invite, then GET ME YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS! I will send you out my invite email asap. Or call me and I'll tell you all you need to know. The important part is that it's this Friday the 12th. My god, that's in two days. What were we thinking. Yes, we are clueless. I blame the lack of internet. Really. For those that are not local or can't make it, or, you know, not really friends who would come to our house and stuff, watch this spot sometime after August 22nd and there will be cool stories and movie reviews and news and whatever else you're used to seeing on my blog. I MISS YOU GUYS! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
10:11 pm	I'm not yet dead I got a call today from a friend who wanted to know if I was still alive. I have spent the last several weeks telling Scott that I really need to have some time to write a blog post. I have written so many in my head, and I have so much to say, but, I have ABSOLUTELY NO TIME! NONE. But I couldn't take it anymore, so, shhh, while Scott's at work, I'm going to quickly let you know that I'm alive and that life is more hectic than I can remember it ever being. The biggest news is that we are moving. Not far. [eta: this is where there was supposed to be a discussion of The Two Year Plan. I'm looking at this as the first step. Winter has two years left of high school, so this is the first of the two year moves. Next move, in two years: Alaska! (well, that's the plan anyway...) but there was not time to write about that. Maybe next post.] If you're a Game Night regular you'll need to get the new addy from us. When we actually move, I'll do a Game Night mailing and attempt to do a change of address emailing as well. Our lease here was about to be up, they raised the rent, and we realized that, with Sky off to college, we didn't really need a third bedroom. So we are moving to a smaller place a bit closer to the school. On the second floor (which I like). The new place is available on July 6th and our lease ends on August 2nd. The original plan was to take most of the month to slowly move in. But the development we're in now has someone interested in the apartment already, and would like us out sooner. That means we save enough money that we can, hopefully, hire movers to help! Yay. Here's what my July now looks like: • This weekend I'm off to a wedding in Nevada. Get back home on Sunday. • Monday, July 4th, the normal picnic/concert/fireworks in the park with the kids and my mom. (if you are local and want to join, let me know so that there's enough food) • Wednesday we have access to the new place and the move starts. • One week and a few days later (Friday) we need to be out of the old place and fully into the new. • That same day, Sky has tickets to see Bob Dylan somewhere not here, so I need to drive her there. • That Monday I drive Sky to UCSC for orientation on Tuesday. • Wednesday we drive back home from SC, pick up Scott and Winter, without stopping, and get ourselves to San Diego for ComicCon. • CON! • Home that Monday. • Wednesday, Winter and I leave for NYC for her 16th birthday trip. We get back after August starts. Meanwhile, in addition to all of the above, Winter is going to Summer school and Sky is getting ready to move out. In other news. I went to an ENT yesterday to have my throat looked at. Turns out I have two things wrong with it. First; I have callouses on my vocal cords, evidently caused by the fact that I talk too much. Well, too "animatedly". The other problem is a reflux problem that's irritated my cords as well. Oh, and then there's the fact that my glands are all swollen, but she didn't tell me why. What this all means is that I'm not supposed to do much talking for the next several weeks. If I do talk, I need to talk calmly and quietly. I also need to not eat for three hours before I go to sleep, and I need suck lemons for the glands. If you know me, you know how awful all of this is. If I see you at Comic Con, please don't be offended if I don't shout hi and be all enthusiastic when I see you, it's not that I'm not enthused, it's just that I'm not allowed. Scott got back hours ago, we had dinner, I finished laundry and then I finished this post. Scott has been cleaning and packing and stuff, and I really need to go help. I will try to post before another month goes by, but under the circumstances, I'm not promising... (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
1:52 pm	Yes. I am still alive. Been awhile, hasn't it? I hadn't wanted to post again until I'd answered all the comments and email that I've gotten of late, but I've not come close to doing that. I was just getting started catching up, when I got word that my sister passed, and I've really not done anything since. I'm sorry. I think I'm up to starting again now, and in the next week or so I hope to reply to most of it. I want to thank everyone for the kind words, the emails, the Facebook comments, the phone calls, the cards, etc, since my last post. I think I'll let this suffice as a thank you for all of them. I can't begin to tell you how much it all meant to me. I'm still a bit numb. Don't think I've made my peace with it all yet, but I expect that that is something that takes a lot of time. Life goes on. What I really want to do right now, is spend all my time reading. I love to escape into stories. I don't read fast, so there's always far more that I want to read than time to read it in. I only mention this because I'm in a headspace where, if left to my own devices, I would be doing nothing but read. I hadn't realized how much I use that to escape. Life gets bad/sad/whatever, and I want to read. Or go to the movies. Sky and I went to the midnight showing of Pirates last Thursday. I loved it. I adore Jack as a character, but this was my favorite Jack yet. My spoiler free review: There were places in the movie when I had no idea what was going to happen next. That rarely happens to me, I usually can predict where things will go. I could predict many things, but there were places where I could see it going different ways and didn't know which direction they would head and there were times when I just didn't see THAT coming. I like being surprised. I saw it at midnight. There was one scene when I found my self drifting and was afraid that I would fall asleep, but it was a fight scene early on, and shortly after that it got interesting and I wasn't close to dozing again. We got home after 3am and I was still awake and thinking about the movie. For those who've been to the Disney ride many times, yet again, there is stuff for us to get excited about. And, like the others, you should stay until after the credits if you want to see everything. Scott was just getting back from NYC on Thursday night, so he opted out. He's still not seen the third movie and decided that he should see it first (we own it, but, somehow Scott's not seen it). Which means that I get to see it again with Scott. I will see if I like it as much the second time. The whole Pirates saga is cowritten by Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot. I've met Terry a few times. He's a friend of a friend. I figure I should mention that, since it could be considered a conflict of interests. It isn't. I like him, but I don't know him all that well. And besides, I'd never say I liked something I didn't because I knew the author. I would be much more likely to not say anything then lie. Luckily, I really like Terry's work so no problem there. I know lots and lots of writers. I thought, when I was younger, that I would know lots and lots of actors and directors and things, but, no, not really. I mostly know writers. This is because of Scott, not me, of course. I do know a lot of writers and directors in local theatre. I go to the theatre and there's a good chance someone involved in the show in someway will know me. But that's all community theatre. Not as well known as the people I know because of Scott. I mention this because I've been thinking of my geek status lately, and whether I have one or not. I think it was Heidi who did a piece not too long ago about actresses talking up being geeky because it was now in fashion. It got me thinking. One of the things that they were making fun of was people claiming geek status because they were a fan of Star Wars. I've frequently claimed that, so it made me worry. Okay, I know this is silly, but I've been thinking of this a whole lot lately. I think I qualify for geek status. Fist of all, when I say that I was a fan of Star Wars, I don't mean that I saw it in the theatres three times like most of the world did. Everyone saw it at least three times that year. I saw it 15. In the theatre. First time I saw it was the day it opened in Washington DC when it was still in the limited release. I swear (I've argued with people who worked on it, but I still say they're wrong and I'm right) that the version I saw that first time was not the same as the one I saw the next week when it went into wide release. I know for a fact that what we saw then, in 1977, is not what is available now. There have been all sorts of changes. I not only saw the movie 15 times, I read the novelization and at least another book after that. I loved that movie. I had t-shirts, buttons, posters, you name it. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a movie as much. Didn't love the sequels. Any of them really. Saw them all anyway. Today is the anniversary of that first showing. Wow. I saw it for the first time 34 years ago today. But my geekdom doesn't end there. Today is also Towel Day. It commemorates the life and death of Douglas Adams. He died 10 years ago. Which means I saw him a little over 10 years ago, since I had seen a lecture of his a few months before he died. I was a fan of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy back when no one in America had heard of it. I was living in England when the second book came out. The albums were being played on the Pirate Radio and I fell in love. By the time I'd left London, I owned both books, both albums, had seen the TV show(? not sure about the timing on that) and had met Mr. Adams twice at two different signings. Maybe it was three books by the time I left. All of my copies are the British editions since that's how I started, and I hated that tongue sticking out thing on the the American books. Have I earned my Geek credit yet? Or should I bring up Who. See, I was a huge fan of The Good Doctor way back in the '70s. My first doctor was Tom Baker. Watched the show religiously. In college a group of us would watch together. It would be years before I realized that Douglas Adams was writing some of the episodes that I was loving. And now, I know someone who just wrote one of the best Dr Who episodes ever. You all did see Neil (Gaiman, for those of you new to my blog)'s episode, right? It was awesome. I am so loving Matt Smith's Doctor and his companions have won my heart many times over. And Neil's episode was funny and creepy and sad and thought provoking and heartwarming and just a little scary. It could only have been written by someone who loved the show as much as we do. I am so lucky that when people I know write things they are really good at it. I don't have to lie or pretend, I just get to enjoy! Then I get to say nice things about people I like. Win win. And what would an Ivy post be without mentioning Sherlock, the newest show I'm obsessed with: Kudos to them for winning two BAFTAs! Martin Freeman is so my hero. And you know he's going to be The Hobbit, right? (and omg, just look at who else is in that movie!) I've seen every LotR movie the day it hit the theatres. I am so very excited to see The Hobbit when it comes out next year! (And if you haven't seen Sherlock yet, WHY NOT?! Haven't I told you you should enough times yet?) So, what do you think? Can I call myself a geek? And does it hurt or help that one of the movies I'm most looking forward to for this year is the new Muppet Movie? (which, as far as I'm aware, is NOT written by anyone I know) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
10:29 am	An update I thought you would all like to know: my sister Pammy passed away this morning. I'm still a bit numb. I knew it was coming, but it still hurts. There seems to have been an awful lot of death this week... My plans for today had been to catch up on answering all the comments from the last several posts. There are many comments, and I thank you all for that. I only made it half way through the post that went up before the trip. I have a lot of catching up to do. Tomorrow I'm having lunch with Sky, so I only have the morning, but if I'm feeling up to it, I'll try. Please know that I read everything, even if it takes me ages to comment back. And I thank you all. (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 10th, 2011
2:37 pm	The other happy bread, or at least peaceful bread. My week: part 3 The rest of my trip doesn't read nearly as well as the first two parts. (for those interested: Part one is here. Part 2 is here.) After we visited with Pammy, we took a Megabus to Rhode Island where Holly and her partner live. On Wednesday Holly, Mom and I drove around RI, ate at an adorable diner, the likes of which are only seen in the east, and watched Youtube vids of Willowbrook. Holly and I took a nice walk near the ocean. It was a reflective sort of day. Late afternoon/early evening, I took off for Boston. This was the first part of the trip that I was alone for. I went to Boston mostly to visit with my friend Alice. Alice recently bought and moved into a condo. She had been there just shy of one month when she walked outside during a storm, slipped on some black ice and shattered her hip. Really shattered. They thought there were nine breaks, but when they operated they decided it was more like 12 or 15. Despite being the same age as me, they say she has the bones of a 72 year-old. This was a few months ago now. She's been home for awhile, but mostly housebound. I felt awful that I'm no longer in the area and haven't made it out to help in any way. Maybe it was for the best, since I didn't really help at all. She's doing much better now. I was there from Wednesday night to Saturday and mostly all I did was hang out and chat. Alice is doing so well we even managed to walk to a restaurant on Friday night for dinner. Getting to Alice was an adventure since I'd not been there before, wasn't sure what I was doing, and had lots of bags. It would have been a piece of cake, but... my iPhone's battery was running out. I was so afraid it would go and I'd have to beg someone to let me in to charge my phone enough to use the map or call or something. Luckily it held out and I made it there safe and sound. I made a few trips on my own while I was staying with Alice. I went to lunch on Thursday with two friends of mine who knew each other online, but had not met before. It was fun and geeky. When we were done with lunch, one of them offered me a ride to help me find a CVS that I could get my drugs at. This turned out to be much more difficult that we thought it would be (finding a CVS that had a pharmacy and parking was not easy). She then gave me a ride back to Alice's but by then it was rush hour, so I got back much later than I'd expected. It was fun having the time to catch up, would've been nicer if it wasn't so stressful. I did manage to get me a Chocolate Kreme Donut (which are my favorite ever). Sadly there was only one left, so I had to bring home something much more boring to Alice. I felt bad about that, so the next day I had my Dunkin' Donut Excursion. I seem to have these. They are much more fun in the retelling than in the actual living. This one started out simple enough. There was a DD across from the T-station about half a mile or so away. No problem. I'm a slow walker and there are hills so it takes me maybe fifteen minutes. I get there, and there are no Chocolate Kreme filled. There is no point to getting Dunkin' Donuts if there is no Chocolate Kremes. I called Alice to tell her and get directions to the next closest shop. This is the Boston area. There are Dunkin' Donuts everywhere. The next closest was about a mile away on the same road. So I headed there (well, I went a block or two in the wrong direction first, but we're not going to mention that). It took longer to get there, but get there I did. That Friday was a particularly hot day. I was really glad to get to the shop. And they were a good one! Chocolate Kreme Filled achieved! There were 5 of them. I bought a dozen donuts and started with all five of the CKs. So, now I was at the donut shop, I had a big box of donuts and at least a mile to walk and it was really hot out.This was the hardest part. Decided to let the phone pick my route, because I knew there might be a shorter way than the way I had come, and there was! So, I began the trudge back. It was hot. I was hot. It was now around noon and there was no shade. I'd (stupidly) left without eating or drinking anything that morning. I was not doing well. On the plus side, my phone was sending me home a different route so I was seeing more of the neighborhood. It was about then that Ivy's-Stupid-Luck kicked in. My phone went dead. It had been too bright for me to see that the power bar was in the red, so I was surprised by this turn of events. I reigned in my panic, but it was a near thing; A) I wasn't sure what was wrong with the phone, could've been anything. I was so afraid it was kaput. I was envisioning what I'd need to do to get a new one and how much I really didn't want one. B) I wasn't completely sure where I was. I knew what the next direction had been, but I was on all new streets. I was pretty sure that I was about to be somewhere that I'd recognize, but not positive. C) I was fighting that sense you get when you're about to black out. Or maybe it's just me. I get that way. If I'm too hot, too dehydrated, too hungry. And I really needed to pee. It starts with tunnel vision and dizziness. And without a phone or map and not sure where I was going. Not the best part of my vacation. When I got to the next street, I did recognize it, and I was only a couple of blocks away from Alice. Climbing the stairs to her place I felt so much like the Engine Who Could, repeating over and over, "you can do it, you can do it..." And I did. I grabbed some water, went to the bathroom, flopped onto the floor and laughed until I knew I wouldn't pass out. It was very funny. Then we ate donuts, and lets face it, that is by far the best part of any Donut Acquiring Mission. That night we walked to a pub for dinner. I figured I'd gotten my week's worth of exercise that day. And I had Chocolate Kreme filled donuts for brunch and stuffed shrimp for dinner (can't get either around here), so it was an awesome day. I forced Alice to see all of Sherlock. I've mentioned that here, right? Sherlock? You need to see it. It's the show I'm pimping the most right now. I, um, won't tell you how many times I've seen the three episodes already, and have plans to watch them all again soon. Yes. Much much love there. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. Benedict Cumberbatch. Is that the most amazing name you've ever heard, or what?! Sorry. She loved it, btw, because it is awesome and everyone loves it. Except Paul Smith, but then Paul is like Mikey, he hates everything (that is so not true, but it always amuses me how upset he gets with movies that I love, but wait, I'm not talking about him yet, that's still a paragraph or two away. Sorry). Alice and I also caught up on Doctor Who. Go BBC! (both shows have much the same creative team, so really I should be saying, "go everyone!") My last day in Boston was Saturday. The friend that I only got to see for lunch on Thursday came and got me. She showed me her place (so close to where we used to live—if only we were still there...) then we ate some lunch and she got me to the airport. Much nicer than taking the train, and it was so nice to get to spend more time with her. I got home late Saturday night, Sky got home on Sunday, and Scott left town on Monday morning. It's been hectic here. Meanwhile, Paul (X-men) Smith had been back in our area while I was gone (he used to live here, he moved away. Did I ever do the post about him? I had planned to...). He made sure to stay long enough for me to see him on Sunday. We had a lovely couple of hours arguing about life, movies, and tv (as one does). It was a nice homecoming (and I figured out that the reason Paul and I disagree so often is because of our level of personal/preconceived involvement. He usually has way more than I, so it's much harder to live up to his expectations...). Since I've been back, Alice has had another awful thing happen. Her cat, Jasmine, whom we all loved, died this weekend. She was almost 18 (or was 18?). It wasn't totally unexpected, but on the other hand it was sudden. I feel so bad that I was no longer around to give support. I've been trying, but it's hard to do from far away. So that's it. That was the week away, and even much of what's happened since. The only thing left out was Mother's Day, and I didn't really have much of one. I took my mom out to breakfast. My girls remembered to wish me a happy, but they've decided that it's commercial propaganda, and so have chosen to ignore it. Scott came home late Sunday night and we went to see Thor (quickie review: I liked it. Loki-as always-was my favorite. It was fun. Not the best movie ever made, but fun. If you see it, make sure you stay for after the credits. Most of our crowd missed it; you really don't want to miss the last scene.). When the movie ended it was 1am on Monday. Now that I've finally finished this, I'm going to go back and answer all the comments I've gotten on the last few posts. LJ is hiding any comments that come from anonymous posters and I've not gotten around to making the real ones visible yet. Sorry. Now that this is done, I can get back to that sort of thing... (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 5th, 2011
11:43 am	My Week Away. Part 2: Why we went Yesterday was part 1 of my week away. Today. The important part. When I meet someone new and we get to the part of the conversation where we compare siblings, I usually say that I have one sister and one brother. Sometimes I'll pause, and say, "well, actually, I have two sisters, but..." and then I might say "sort of" or "but for all intents and purposes, I only have one". I have many friends who might have been told that I have a second sister, but since I never talk about her, they forget her existence. This sister was the reason for the trip. Most people who know me, have at least heard of my sister Holly, many many of my friends know her. Mom used to call us "twins the hard way"; we are ten and a half months apart in age and I don't remember a time when she was not there. In '64 our sister Pamela was born. I was almost 4 when she was born and I don't remember it at all. Pammy never came home from the hospital. She was born with Downs Syndrome. At the time it was called it Mongolism (due to the facial features); at some point, people realized the inappropriateness of the name and Downs Syndrome was adopted. Remember, this was the mid '60s. The information and resources that we take for granted didn't exist. My parents were counseled that they would not be able to give her appropriate care and that it would be better for Pammy to be taken care of by people who knew what they were doing. This part is all fuzzy to me, I was far too young to understand why things happened, but the upshot was that Pam was given to others to care for. First she was put in a foster home. I don't remember this at all, the only reason I know this is because I remember pictures of us visiting her there. From there, she was moved to an institution called Willowbrook on Staten Island. This, I remember. Vividly. We used to visit her there. It was always scary. I have lots of scattered memories of screams emanating from buildings as we passed, large patches of grass that we would all play on, horrid smells, and fear whenever I lagged behind and lost my family. I remember when she moved from one building to another. The new building was the showcase for the institution; when they wanted to show people how nice it was, this is where they took them. I think she was probably very lucky. The name Geraldo Rivera, to most people now, conjures up images of breaking into empty vaults on live tv. But for me Geraldo was a hero. He's the one that exposed what was going on in Willowbrook. Here's a bit of what I'm talking about. I'd like to think that my sister was never affected by the horrors of the place, that she was always in a better unit, but I have no idea if that is true. Mostly, I remember watching the Geraldo Rivera report and being horrified by the whole thing. It took awhile before they managed to get everyone out of there, but they did. I have this memory of being in school and talking to home. I must have used a pay phone, since there were no cells in those days. And it must have been me calling, I think I was checking in frequently at lunch or whenever I was allowed to use the phone. In my mind is the searing image of me, leaning on the wall next to the phone crying, having a hard time standing because my legs didn't want to hold me up, and shaking. I think I'd just found out that Pammy had been finally taken out of that place. I had been so afraid that the day would not ever come. When my family moved to Florida, my parents tried to get Pammy moved there as well. They wanted her in a facility closer to where we were now living so that we could continue to visit her. At that time we were traveling a lot and living a life that would not have been conducive to having a child with as many health problems as she had had. For some reason we were blocked. My sister thinks it was because the class action suite from Willowbrook (which she was part of) meant that she needed to stay in the state to ensure that she get the best care possible. At the time, we thought it had something to do with her having been in a state institution and that she had to stay in the state. I don't know. At this point in time, I was a teenager, but still kept in the dark about much of this. From Willowbrook, Pammy was moved to a foster home. We really liked the foster mom, and I remember visiting Pammy there. But we were now living far away, and didn't get up to New York all that often (once or twice a year?). My grandmother (Nana) used to visit Pammy all the time. When we went to New York, we would visit Nana and then all of us would go and visit Pammy together. Then Nana got sick. Alzheimer's. She barely knew who we were. Trips to New York still meant visiting Nana, but Pammy was no longer included. By now, the family had moved to California, and getting to the east coast was an infrequent occurrence at best. Time passed. After a few years of not seeing Pammy, it was hard to find a way to visit. It had been so long. She was moved to a group home. when she went blind she was moved to a group home on the edge of the grounds of what used to be Willowbrook. Holly visited the home there and thought it was lovely. I've lost track of the last time I'd seen Pammy. Holly and I kept saying that sometime when I visited New York, she would come down (she lives in Rhode Island) and we would visit Pammy together. This past Christmas, Pammy's heart stopped beating. They were able to bring her back. They called my parents to let them know. Holly was visiting us for the holidays and was there when my folks got the call. Holly stepped in and called doctors and tried to find out exactly what was going on. I had no idea any of this was happening. I turned 50 and got the cruise I'd always wanted, and my parents decided that I didn't need to know about all of this until after my dream cruise. They didn't want me to spend the whole time being depressed. Deep down inside, I'm glad they did this. I would not have had as good a time if I knew about what was going on with my sister, but I feel guilty even for that. When the cruise was over, before I even got off the ship, I got a call from Holly telling me everything that was going on. When Holly got home, she went to New York and got to see our sister. She was the first member of our family to visit Pammy for decades. She continued to find a way to visit every other week or so. The first time she visited, Pammy was upset, but she was reacting to things. Downs Syndrome is a form of mental retardation. This means that Pam never progressed much farther than the intellect of a child (I remember the visit when I realized that my baby brother was capable of higher thought processes than his older sister). When Holly visited, she was struck by how sweet Pammy still was. I truly wish I could have been there then. Since then, Pammy has been moving between the hospital and a nursing home. And her heart stopped again. Again they were able to bring her back, but this time, it had been stopped for much longer. They believe there was brain damage. It's hard to tell. Pammy is blind (cataracts in both eyes, when operated on, the retinas had detached), she has no teeth (they've all been removed, I'm not sure why), and her communication skills are limited. Before this, she was retarded in the true sense of the word, her development was slowed from normal. Now, they think there is brain damage. There is a difference. They suspect that she will remain in an infantile state. Not a vegetative state, but an infantile one. No one knows. I'm not sure if they even know why her heart stopped beating both times. I'm going to be in NYC this summer for Winter's 16th birthday, but I'm not sure if Pammy will still be around. If she is, Winter would like to finally meet her other aunt. This last week was Spring Break for the girls and I could get away with leaving for a bit. Which is why I took a train, with my mom, to see my sister that I'd not seen in several decades. I don't have a good excuse for not visiting sooner. I can make all the excuses in the world, but it won't turn back time, and it won't make up for all those lost years. There is a part of me that will never forgive myself for not doing something sooner, but I'm really glad I finally did something constructive. When we got to New York, Pammy had just been moved back to the nursing home. She's in an intensive care unit, which means we needed to wear gowns, gloves, and masks to visit. I really wish I could have held her hand without the gloves. She is breathing through a tube in her neck, and it was hard to tell when she was awake or asleep. We stayed for a couple of hours taking turns holding her hands and singing to her (music is important in my family). There were times when she seemed to be aware we were there, despite the fact that we were told that she wouldn't be. She is no longer talking and I have no idea if she's in pain or not. Seeing her like that hurt so bad. I missed the good times. The last time I saw her we had both been, essentially, kids. I didn't get to see her as an adult and happy. But I did get to see her. And hold her hand, even if it was through a glove, and sing to her, even though it was through a mask and my dreadful voice. Part of me wished her heart would've stopped again, when we were all there, together. So she could be at peace and loved. I don't know what's right. Or even what's best for her, we're all trying to figure things out, and there are no definite answers. Come this summer, if she's still around, Winter and I (and Holly) will go back and visit her again. If I were going with Scott on any of his trips to NYC before then, I would have found a way to visit her then as well, but I'm not. I'm in CA and she's on Staten Island. I hope I get to see her again. I hope she's happy. I wish I knew. I hate that it's taken so long and a tragedy before I managed to see her again. I hate that retardation was ever treated as a "dirty little secret" that we didn't talk about. I figure that that means I need to start talking about it. Which, I guess, is why I wrote this. I don't know what I'm trying to say with this post. Mostly, I'm just telling you my story. There were lots of decisions that were made that I'm not sure were the right ones. I know there's a part of me that will always regret so much of this. I also know that if she had been born today, Pammy's story would be completely different. Things are so much better now than they were then. I can't change the past. I just hope I'll do better in the future. Seeing Pammy is why I crossed the country last week. It was hard. I waited too long to get there and the memory will always make me cry. But I'm glad I went. (15 Comments |Comment on this)