Just a quick check-in to say: computer/phone/tech upgrades suck. But I'm getting there. Look, ma! Internet browsing: go! Moving on.

Best thing about yesterday was McDiva announcing that she now has the perfect comeback to the "why don't you smile, sweetheart" question to which females are so often subjected. "The patriarchy." Of course! Why didn't all of us think of that a million years ago?

I'm still catching up from taking a couple of weeks off to go to Oregon/Washington and look at colleges with McDiva. It went better than I expected, as I feared she would balk after one tour and refuse to go on. But no! She actually enjoyed parts of it and was able to articulate what she liked and didn't. The academics at one school were very appealing, the facilities and staff in the costume department intriguing at another, the degree program (but nothing else) very close to perfect at yet another. Also, the costuming department heads were swooning over her work, which hasn't even been officially put into portfolio format. I think she's going to ace this college thing!

It didn't hurt that the thrift shopping in Portland is excellent, or that Dear Old Dad took us to movies and plays pretty much every night! Besides which, Portland is an excellent, exciting food town these days, with lots of young people flocking there and putting on a show opening a restaurant/food/truck/artisanal pickling plant or whatever tickles t their fancy. So fun. We saw lots of relatives and friends while we were there, although I always wish there was more time to do that part of things. Our last activity of the trip was attending Taming of the Shrew at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival in Ashland. Big fun! The production had a "boardwalk" theme, and the tech was awesome, with interesting use of projection and a live band in an onstage balcony to punctuate the action. Petruchio was a hot-rod, rockabilly guy, and you just know that things are going to work out when he discovers Kate's hitherto hidden sleeve tattoo. Hee.

We visited the grave of my stepmother on Memorial Day. Her mother died the previous week. My former stepfather died last Tuesday. That'll do, universe. There will be no memorial service for my step-grandmother, as she had outlived anybody who might attend and specified that she didn't want one. The funeral for my stepdad is tomorrow. I will see lots of people I haven't seen in decades, and probably will never see again. I have some mixed feelings. He took terribly, suddenly ill a few months ago, with the same bile duct cancer that killed Ray Manzarek recently. He was in the not-old/not-young zone, and with no possibility that he'd get better, we all (him included) wished for as painless an end as possible. He married his delightful companion of 20 years about a month ago, which will make things easier for her, I hope. Everybody got a last visit. It will never be sufficient but is better than not getting one. He was a decent guy, smart and slightly strange in an altogether understandable (to me) way. I feel I had some things I should have made up to him at some point, since he put up with all my teenaged shenanigans — and even let me drive his Camaro in the '70s! — and I'll never get the chance now. We were good though. I'm glad that he won't suffer any more. But.

In fandom news, I fluffed my seasonal_spuffy day, which was the day after we got back from our trip. But the story is about 2/3 of the way done, I promise. I might've finished it in time for free-for-all day, but spent all day Saturday with a new friend who just finished watching Buffy for the first time. We went to Much Ado About Nothing, watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, the Shakespeare Retold version of Taming of the Shrew, had dinner and then watched the Firefly pilot. It was a bit much, but she's young. Heh. I'm going to get back to the story writing...between tech support calls, work, jury duty, doctor's appointments, etc. We all need moar fic, amirite?




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