Memo · and · random

Woke up, as usual without enough sleep (darn this time zone!) and finished up "The Ear, The Eye and the Arm," an entertaining SF story set in 22nd century Zimbabwe (also turns into a fantasy at the end when a lot of ancestral spirits show up). Then I finally got around to practicing my lines, and did so on and off through the day.
The rest of the morning was a mix of Perry Mason and Meet Boston Blackie, a 1941 B-movie. Briefly distracted by P's alarm going off--OK, distracted for about 20 minutes until I banged on the door to wake her and get her to turn it off. Lordy, but my niece can sleep!
Then in the early afternoon, we headed over to C.'s friend Jeff, who lives nearby. The goal: A game of the DVD-based Clue.
It's much more complicated than the original: More rooms, more suspects, and you have to guess time of day as well as person/place/weapon. The crimes are more varied (we played with the theft of one of Mr. Boddy's objet d'art) and the DVD keeps providing clues via the Scotland Yard inspector or the butler, which enables you to figure out the answers without going through process of elimination. OK, it didn't help me figure it out, but my niece cracked the case.
It would have been easier to focus, of course, without Savage the pug (ohh, yeah, he's one savage beast, magnet5 said sarcastically) and Brody the 18month-old (Colin the five year old was fine). But it was still fun.
After that, Jeff talked us into a game of Don't Crack the Ice, which is simple (and intended for small kids) but quite entertaining (can you knock pieces out of the ice without toppling the skating polar bear into it?).
Then off to a soup kitchen—-er, Souplantation, a salad-bar restaurant. The food was good (I particularly liked the pinto bean-barley soup). Then home.

Very quiet and lazy.
Got up, watched Perry Mason episodes. Craig spotted the librarian from Star Trek: All Our Yesterdays as an art forger.
Broke to read the anthology containing my Red Riding Hood story. It was, overall, good; a couple of stories (besides mine) were excellent.
Watched a couple of episodes of Match Game '77, then played the DVD game, which includes clips of the various stars answering the questions. My brother C. won the first game, then I won one.
Then Paige cooked us her sauteed tofu and veggies. Mmmm.
Then a nap, then watching The Big Clock,in which editor Ray Milland is assigned by his publisher to find a murderer for their true-crime magazine. The catch is, publisher Charles Laughton is the killer and Milland (though Laughton doesn't know it) is the man the publisher plans to frame for it (this was remade as NO WAY OUT).
Then a couple of episodes of WINGS (they've been watching in reruns).
Then more games.
Then games. First, Top Secret, which is rather slow and dull, but we finished fairly quickly. Then C. decided it was time to teach P. rummy.
Rummy has a long tradition in our family. We've occasionally switched from 500 rummy to 5,000 rummy, and we have many stories about our grandfather's blithely discarding cards that could have been laid off (usually while intoning, "Oh, what's a man to do ...").
This was Paige's first time, so her normal competitiveness was amped up with lots of squealing, giggling, bewailing and bemoaning dependning how the game was going. For her, not well; for me, the luck was running hot and I won with around 578, about 150 ahead of C.
I have no done any memorizing of lines. I really need to start.

Woke up a little early this morning--I haven't quite adjusted to the two hour time change. Read a little, then watched some Perry Mason ... which kept me busy until after lunch.
In the afternoon, I watched AMC's attempted remake of The Prisoner. Bleah. A failure, without the style of the original or the presence of Patrick McGoohan.
Also, since it looks like Jan. 16 is back on for moving, went over my to do list for the next seven weeks. I really wish I had a clearer path to gainful employment rather than just noting "Check want ads, check journalismjobs.com, update resume ..." but the dice are cast, let's just hope it comes up lucky sevens.
My niece P. made a test run for the apple pie recipe she's making Thursday; she had some troubles with the crust (the first time, she didn't use enough flower) but it came out great (she hopes to do better Thursday).
My bro cooking himself salmon didn't go so well—-there was a lot of smoke. I'm no meat cook, of course, but P. says the heat was up and he flipped it too fast. Thank God Lazslo didn't see it!
Then a couple of games of Hands Down (lost both, had a blast), and one game of Masterpiece (P. won). Then Psycho: P. was very, very, very scared and spent a lot of time under her blanket.
At the moment, watching How I Met Your Mother.

My brother picked up a half-dozen boxes of Eggos while we were shopping yesterday. Apparently the factory burned down so there's a shortage (and several shelves in the supermarket were indeed empty). This is not a joke. Though I do find it funny.

My bro and I spend a lot of time during Perry Mason episodes pegging the various guest stars, ranging from the famous (Julie Adams of Creature From the Black Lagoon) to such less-prominent names as Joseph Montaigne in Case of the Carefree Coronary (he was Spock's rival Stonn in Amok Time).

First off, my brother's dog Sadie seems to finally have accepted me: This is the first year she didn't bark her head off when I showed up, and she was demanding petting in a relatively short order.
Sunday, I got up, watched some Perry Mason episodes my brother had taped,read some, napped. Then we went out shopping for some veggie food.
Then since my niece is in a fund-raiser production next month for a theater camp she attends, we drove over to Universal City (we meaning her, my bro and me). After that, we took a ride with my niece's best friend's mom over to a nearby Universal mall where we wandered around, snacked and browsed the tourist stores. The big hook for me was a comic-book store and my brother admitted he had the itch to collect some of the old sixties stuff in TPB (which I was glad to advise him on).
After my niece was done, the three of us went to dinner at this little cafe where we were waited upon by ... Lazslo. Who was a perfectly good waiter, but when my niece pointed out a stain on her drink glass, he looked at with horror as if he was ready to call the dishwasher out on a duel. We all cracked up and kept joking about it all evening ("There's a mistake in the bill." "Don't tell Lazslo, he might kill himself for shame!").
A good day, in short.
Books read so far:
•The Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale: A very good fantasy based on a Grimm tale about a princess sealed up in a tower for seven years when she refuses to marry as her father dictates.
•Soulless. A very weak Victorian-set "urban fantasy" (which has been defined these days as Buffyesque demon/vampire hunter adventures) that I had high hopes for, but it didn't work for me at all.
•Catastrophe Planet. A sixties adventure by Keith Laumer in which a man encounters a mysterious conspiracy amidst an Earth falling apart under a massive tectonic shift.

Overall, pretty smooth. Except on the Houston-LA leg, the reading light for my seat was burned out so I couldn't read for the last ninety minutes. Not my worst experience on a flight by a longshot, of course.

Houston Airport is sprawling. Not just big, like Atlanta, but it's as if they took Atlanta and extended it out a few hundred yards in every direction, so there's extra corridors to walk through.

And LAX, even though I came in to a different terminal, is still amazingly free of anywhere decent to eat (though at least this section had a Starbucks--the tea shop in the Delta terminal can't do better than Lipton's).

Having shillied and shallied on jewelry, finally found Zoo Gallery's new Destin store and stopped off THursday. Found a turquoise pendant I thought would do the trick.
Picked TYG up a couple of hours later and it seemed like we held each other forever when she got off the plane. Then home, and an evening of snuggling and TMI things.
Friday, she had to work in the morning, then we went to the beach (Okaloosa Island) in the afternoon. Walking along the beach I finally asked her to sit and told her I loved her and gave her a card with an e.e. cummings quote: "Yes is a world and in this world of yes live all the worlds. Please say yes." and asked her (it was a birthday card but I stickered over the "Happy birthday.").
She was completely gobsmacked--I think she'd assumed, as I did, that we'd do it further down the road. But I'd wanted to do it before we moved in--it seemed more romantic that way. A part of me wonders if she wouldn't rather have waited (needless to say, being me, I'm second-guessing myself) but she said yes. And ultimately that's all that counts.
Friday night we went to dinner w/mum and charlotte, then back to the condo where they were staying. It went well.
Saturday, we went to rehearsal for the new dinner theater, then out to The Box. Great design (it's set in the seventies) but while not a waste of time, sinks under its own pretensions and a sucky ending (the eighties Twilight Zone did a much better job adapting the original short story). Then we came home and read for a while.
Then at 3:30 in the morning, TYG got a work call and had to be up for ninety minutes fixing the Internet.
Sunday we drove down to Seaside, ate at Bud & Alley's pizza, walked on the beach some more (but I didn't propose again). We were going to spend the evening visiting w/Mum but instead the Internet was still broken so TYG had to spend the evening on a conference call.
And this morning, she flew away ... but within two-to-3.5 months, I'll be with her again.

I asked TYG to pop the question. She said yes.
Then I mentioned it to one of the City Council. And it reached the mayor. And at tonight's meeting, he announced it in front of the audience (including the cable audience!).

So between now and mid-January:
•work on the book.
•Work on the story series.
•Mum's coming in next month for two week's.
•TYG is coming in on the 12th.
•Packing and general move preparing.
•The Christmas show.
•Work and everyday life.
I think by the time I leave I will have what my Aunt May used to call the screaming habdabs.

Lots of reading. Finished a book on Brainwashing for Enemy Within. Read in some of my comic-book TPBs. And finished The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler's classic hardboiled detective novel. And man, it's good.
An occasional day like that is very relaxing.

Last night, I had a blast too. My friend Robbyn is heading out of town to her new job in DC, so some of us went out on a pub crawl.

It was much more fun than these things usually are. For one thing, a small group, almost all of whom I know. For another, being with TYG and knowing I'm moving up there, I didn't have the feeling I've gotten the past few years when one of my friends move on to something new: Wondering why things aren't improving, why nothing in my life seems to change (I think this feeling started as my lovelife kept dragging on and on and on ... and the no wage-increase thing didn't help). Now that things are changing, it's better. Much.

So I went to Freedom's Web site and checked out the North Carolina papers. Regrettably, they're all two to three hours away from TYG's place.
This puts them much lower on the priority list than I'd have liked. And that really made it register that maybe I won't be able to find a day job in journalism—-I think somehow I'd always figured that it would work out--and will wind up back in retail or something. Which is not bad, but it's a poor substitute for a career I love this much.
But even if that's the case, it doesn't sway my commitment to going. So that's that.

That's the question Answers in Genesis, a creationist site, posted recently, the point being that evolutionary thinking is everywhere (gee, wonder why that is) and Real Christians must watch out for falling into the delusion of evolution.
One of the commenters on the slacktivist blog then posted the following:

"For all the world, this sounds like a merchandise-driven Haim Saban series. It'd be called "EvolutioniZors" (Bekauz poar literasee is KEWL!), and have an ethnically balanced cast of mouthy teenagers. At the climax of the show, the heroes shout "Let's get evolutionized!" and they'd all transform into anthropomorphized animals with super powers, in order to fight off the evil forces of some bad guy with an anvilicious pun-based name. One of the kids would have a ridiculously lame power, like, turning into a humanoid tree sloth. The show would try to imply that his power was the bestest of all, despite the fact that when you play EvolitioniZors with your friends, no one EVER wants to be *that* kid."

It's an odd experience to have time on my hands on the weekends. Particularly since I spent the last month or so with so many weekend trips (Jan, TYG, the wedding), leaving me rushing on the weekends I was home.
But with no get togethers for Mensa or MadLadyRed and nothing for work (I had considered covering an indie-movie event down in South Walton last night/afternoon, but decided not to) I actually wound up with more time yesterday than I had things I "had" to do.
So I sat outside on the water in the morning. Finished two books. Cooked a big bowl of veggie burgoo. And watched some TV, and the excellent movie Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.
I have more to do today, but I still feel very relaxed.

So I left work late morning Friday to go visit my friend Jan in Valdosta. I was feeling more stressed than I wanted, due to having had events to cover Wednesday evening, Thursday morning and Thursday night so I wasn't as ahead on my stories as I'd hoped.
After a delicious lunch at Not Just Bagels (veggies sandwich--they do an excellent job) I headed up 331 to I-10 and away! It was a smooth trip other than not remembering where to turn in Thomasville Ga. and having to stop and ask twice (first time was NOT helpful). I did my usual stop at Books a Million in Tallahassee for tea and a cookie, then wandered around the store stretching my legs.
Since last i was up there a couple of years back, Jan has a cool new condo in a small gated community, much nicer than her old place. We snacked, she headed to rehearsal for the concert, I watched this week's Smallville while I was waiting, then we went out to a planetarium show afterwards--very neat. After that we went up and checked the telescopes on the planetarium roof. Moon was awesome! Then home and watched Stargate Universe intro.
Saturday we hung out in the morning, Jan went for rehearsal, I watched FlashForward. Then lunch at an Indian restaurant with Jan and osme of the other musicians: One mentioned "playing viola" and I immediately responded "Twelfth Night? I was Malvolio." But of course, it was the musical kind of viola.
We caught Nine, came home, changed, went to dinner, hit the concer; Dvorak, Grieg, Verdi, Beethoven. Jan actually got to sit with me since the choir was only in the last part. We went home, watched Dollhouse and slept.
This morning we did YouTube videos including the ventriloquist Terry Fader (fater?)--very impressive. Then I set off. Happily it was a smooth road, no heavy rain until after I got back.
The rest of the day: Reading, organizing, talking to TYG and Mum (separate calls, though).

Ordered three books online today:
•Running Time: Cold War Movies. Self-explanatory title.
•This Tree Grows Out of Hell. Supposed to be an outstanding book about the Mesoamerican religions.
•The Knot Book. I'm fascinated by the way you can take a piece of string, knot it and instantly change the way it behaves and feels. This book goes into the mathematics of knots—-hopefully at a level a layman can follow.

My non-book movie viewing this weekend:
•Brother John (1971) has Sidney Poitier returning to his small Southern hometown when his mother dies—-but is he the labor agitator the local sheriff thinks? Or the Communist agent others suspect? Or there's town doctor Will Geer, who thinks John showing up out of the blue when kinfolk die shows that he's something more than either of those ... but obviously, he's crazy. A slow started, but very good.
•No Name on the Bullet (1959) has gunslinger Audie Murphey showing up in a Western town to kill someone; as he sits at the hotel doing nothing, everyone with a guilty secret starts to panic and start shooting. Comes off now as a forerunner of the sphagetti western; well worth catching.