Day By Day
May. 22nd, 2025 08:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
melydiaInstallation was grand. The ladies who hosted went with an ice cream shop theme, each of the officers getting a different flavor of "ice cream" (actually just colored frosting on an ice cream shaped cookie). As membership recruitment coordinator, I got "nutty buddy fudge" since my job is to get folks to accept the chorus as their new nutty buddies. Also, in a complete surprise to me, I was one of the nominees for Sweet Adeline of the Year! Extra shocking given that I wasn't even on the M-team yet. It felt nice to be recognized.
The next day I missed work. The two late nights in a row (quartet practice then installation) brought my cold back in force, and I did not have time to get sick. So rather than power through and potentially have to miss out on my weekend commitments, I stayed home and slept. Seriously, I took about five hours of naps during the course of the day and still slept the whole night without any trouble. Guess I needed it. I also went to a show script meeting, which was full of very clever ideas. It's going to be a game show of sorts. I'll share more when things get more nailed down.
Thursday Elliott went to a movie with his mom (they have one of those passes where you can see nearly unlimited movies a month) so when it was about time to go pick him up, I went with Jason and we picked up dessert from Cheesecake Factory for the family. When we got home, the three of us (Wyatt lives in his bedroom basically all the time now - sometimes we forget what he looks like) sat around the table and put together a bunch of Transformers toys Jason had purchased. It was really, really fun.
Friday Jason stayed home from work because the insulation guys were coming, and afterwards the house already felt more comfortable, even with the leaky and/or clogged ductwork. I drove straight from work to my quartet gig at the same assisted living place we sang at on New Year's Eve. The crowd was pretty subdued but we still had a good time.
Saturday was my first Gaithersburg Book Festival in a couple years - last year I missed both book fests because of Regionals; this year, being only in one region, I only missed Kensington. I gave Sophia a ride and we arrived in time to help set up in the morning. The group brought almost 1600 books to give away (though I only brought about five myself - my BookCrossing habit has kind of gone by the wayside as of late), but I don't know how many we brought back home, as I was completely out of steam by about 5:30pm, so did not stay for teardown.
It was a very fun day, albeit a tad hot. At some point in the afternoon I started picking up books at random and doing dramatic readings. This actually convinced a couple people to take books. Sophia and I were very tempted by a whole lot of books for sale but managed only to purchase three between us. And yes, I grabbed eight books off the tables for myself, plus two or three graphic novels for Jason. I mean, you can't beat the price. Anyway, when I got home I had a glass of wine and chilled on the couch with Jason, exhausted but happy.
Sunday I was woken up earlier than planned because Wyatt had let Titan out of his room but did not get up himself, meaning I had to get dressed, let the dog out, and give him food and water. Then promptly passed out on the couch for a few hours, which was just divine. Around noon we hopped online with Eick to register for some GenCon events, then Jason and I had arts'n'crafts time out on the deck, him dyeing a plush Crookshanks (the cat from Harry Potter) and me painting way too much makeup onto a Styrofoam mannequin head. I also finally put away some four loads of laundry that had been waiting for, um, a really long time. Later the four of us went to Best Buy (for headphones) and Five Below (for a tiara that we did not find) and picked up some dinner before heading home and watching SNL.
Jason and I both stayed home from work on Monday - him to meet the duct people (who didn't show) and me because I had a gig at noon (for a women's group in Great Falls), and by the time I got home it was just about time to head into DC to see Matt Dinniman, author of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books. I suppose I should explain the arts and crafts from the day before. See, we were making characters from the DCC books. The mannequin head became Samantha, a demigod inhabiting the head of a sex doll. (Don't ask.) I painted the makeup on with acrylics and Jason affixed a blond wig using drywall anchors. The plush cat became Princess Donut, dyed brown and black because Crookshanks is orange but Donut is tortoiseshell. It's not that tough to find a tortie plushie but we got Crookshanks for the squished nose. We also gave her sunglasses and a tiara (which Jason found at Target while I was at my gig), and picked up an inexpensive cat backpack to carry her in. They both came out quite well, if I do say so myself. A couple people even thought Donut was a real cat at first!
At the last minute I remembered to reserve parking in DC, which ended up being a rather sketch spot behind some random rowhouse, but we were neither towed nor mugged, so I'm calling it a win. We had some time to kill between signing in (to reserve our place in line) and the actual event so we grabbed some dinner at Le Pain Quotidien and walked around the corner to a nearby used bookstore. Sophia caught up with us there, then joined us milling about around outside East City Books, where the signing would take place. We met lots of very cool people, and loads of folks asked to take pictures with Donut and Samantha. We got a great photo of a Carl with both of them, and Matt even asked for a picture with Donut. We were technically in line for multiple hours but we had such a good time chatting with fellow fans that it felt like a party. We had Matt sign four books (a copy each for us, Clinton, Eick, and Zach) and the bottom of the Samantha head. I carried the books in a bag under one arm and my purse under the other so I was balanced, while Jason carried Samantha in his hands and Donut on his back, meaning he looked especially unhinged out of context like that. As an added bonus, the weather was almost perfect.
Tuesday VF rehearsed in the choir room at Oakton HS. Sophia finally let people know of her intent to join the chorus, which was pretty exciting. I had emailed the choir director there, asking if he'd hang a flyer about the rehearsal, letting his students know they could come. None of them did, but I was pleased to see the flyer hanging prominently near the door. As an added bonus, we're picking up some older music to see about including in the show, which meant we sang a bunch of so-old-they-might-as-well-be-new-to-us songs and not the contest set for the first time in what feels like forever! Huzzah!
Yesterday morning we discovered that Zenith had locked himself in the downstairs bathroom sometime in the middle of the night. He's such a goober. That evening Jason, Eick, and I played some Smite 2, which is a fun little players-vs-bots battle arena where you play gods from various mythologies. Super fun but I was super tired so I bowed out fairly early.
Tonight is quiet (for once!) so I'm catching up on laundry and this here blog (obvs). Six is crashing here tomorrow night and the following Friday night, on either end of her trip to visit family. She's flying out of Dulles, which is super close to my place, so sleeping here means she can leave a good hour later for her morning flight (she said she has to be at Dulles at something stupid like 3:30am). And get to sleep an hour sooner on the way home, since she won't land until almost midnight. In the meantime, my quartet is delivering a singing telegram for a woman's 96th birthday this weekend, and on Monday we're once again singing at the Fairfax Memorial Day ceremony.
It's a good life. Busy, but very good.
The next day I missed work. The two late nights in a row (quartet practice then installation) brought my cold back in force, and I did not have time to get sick. So rather than power through and potentially have to miss out on my weekend commitments, I stayed home and slept. Seriously, I took about five hours of naps during the course of the day and still slept the whole night without any trouble. Guess I needed it. I also went to a show script meeting, which was full of very clever ideas. It's going to be a game show of sorts. I'll share more when things get more nailed down.
Thursday Elliott went to a movie with his mom (they have one of those passes where you can see nearly unlimited movies a month) so when it was about time to go pick him up, I went with Jason and we picked up dessert from Cheesecake Factory for the family. When we got home, the three of us (Wyatt lives in his bedroom basically all the time now - sometimes we forget what he looks like) sat around the table and put together a bunch of Transformers toys Jason had purchased. It was really, really fun.
Friday Jason stayed home from work because the insulation guys were coming, and afterwards the house already felt more comfortable, even with the leaky and/or clogged ductwork. I drove straight from work to my quartet gig at the same assisted living place we sang at on New Year's Eve. The crowd was pretty subdued but we still had a good time.
Saturday was my first Gaithersburg Book Festival in a couple years - last year I missed both book fests because of Regionals; this year, being only in one region, I only missed Kensington. I gave Sophia a ride and we arrived in time to help set up in the morning. The group brought almost 1600 books to give away (though I only brought about five myself - my BookCrossing habit has kind of gone by the wayside as of late), but I don't know how many we brought back home, as I was completely out of steam by about 5:30pm, so did not stay for teardown.
It was a very fun day, albeit a tad hot. At some point in the afternoon I started picking up books at random and doing dramatic readings. This actually convinced a couple people to take books. Sophia and I were very tempted by a whole lot of books for sale but managed only to purchase three between us. And yes, I grabbed eight books off the tables for myself, plus two or three graphic novels for Jason. I mean, you can't beat the price. Anyway, when I got home I had a glass of wine and chilled on the couch with Jason, exhausted but happy.
Sunday I was woken up earlier than planned because Wyatt had let Titan out of his room but did not get up himself, meaning I had to get dressed, let the dog out, and give him food and water. Then promptly passed out on the couch for a few hours, which was just divine. Around noon we hopped online with Eick to register for some GenCon events, then Jason and I had arts'n'crafts time out on the deck, him dyeing a plush Crookshanks (the cat from Harry Potter) and me painting way too much makeup onto a Styrofoam mannequin head. I also finally put away some four loads of laundry that had been waiting for, um, a really long time. Later the four of us went to Best Buy (for headphones) and Five Below (for a tiara that we did not find) and picked up some dinner before heading home and watching SNL.
Jason and I both stayed home from work on Monday - him to meet the duct people (who didn't show) and me because I had a gig at noon (for a women's group in Great Falls), and by the time I got home it was just about time to head into DC to see Matt Dinniman, author of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books. I suppose I should explain the arts and crafts from the day before. See, we were making characters from the DCC books. The mannequin head became Samantha, a demigod inhabiting the head of a sex doll. (Don't ask.) I painted the makeup on with acrylics and Jason affixed a blond wig using drywall anchors. The plush cat became Princess Donut, dyed brown and black because Crookshanks is orange but Donut is tortoiseshell. It's not that tough to find a tortie plushie but we got Crookshanks for the squished nose. We also gave her sunglasses and a tiara (which Jason found at Target while I was at my gig), and picked up an inexpensive cat backpack to carry her in. They both came out quite well, if I do say so myself. A couple people even thought Donut was a real cat at first!
At the last minute I remembered to reserve parking in DC, which ended up being a rather sketch spot behind some random rowhouse, but we were neither towed nor mugged, so I'm calling it a win. We had some time to kill between signing in (to reserve our place in line) and the actual event so we grabbed some dinner at Le Pain Quotidien and walked around the corner to a nearby used bookstore. Sophia caught up with us there, then joined us milling about around outside East City Books, where the signing would take place. We met lots of very cool people, and loads of folks asked to take pictures with Donut and Samantha. We got a great photo of a Carl with both of them, and Matt even asked for a picture with Donut. We were technically in line for multiple hours but we had such a good time chatting with fellow fans that it felt like a party. We had Matt sign four books (a copy each for us, Clinton, Eick, and Zach) and the bottom of the Samantha head. I carried the books in a bag under one arm and my purse under the other so I was balanced, while Jason carried Samantha in his hands and Donut on his back, meaning he looked especially unhinged out of context like that. As an added bonus, the weather was almost perfect.
Tuesday VF rehearsed in the choir room at Oakton HS. Sophia finally let people know of her intent to join the chorus, which was pretty exciting. I had emailed the choir director there, asking if he'd hang a flyer about the rehearsal, letting his students know they could come. None of them did, but I was pleased to see the flyer hanging prominently near the door. As an added bonus, we're picking up some older music to see about including in the show, which meant we sang a bunch of so-old-they-might-as-well-be-new-to-us songs and not the contest set for the first time in what feels like forever! Huzzah!
Yesterday morning we discovered that Zenith had locked himself in the downstairs bathroom sometime in the middle of the night. He's such a goober. That evening Jason, Eick, and I played some Smite 2, which is a fun little players-vs-bots battle arena where you play gods from various mythologies. Super fun but I was super tired so I bowed out fairly early.
Tonight is quiet (for once!) so I'm catching up on laundry and this here blog (obvs). Six is crashing here tomorrow night and the following Friday night, on either end of her trip to visit family. She's flying out of Dulles, which is super close to my place, so sleeping here means she can leave a good hour later for her morning flight (she said she has to be at Dulles at something stupid like 3:30am). And get to sleep an hour sooner on the way home, since she won't land until almost midnight. In the meantime, my quartet is delivering a singing telegram for a woman's 96th birthday this weekend, and on Monday we're once again singing at the Fairfax Memorial Day ceremony.
It's a good life. Busy, but very good.
