I just got back from a day of selling soup at the Second Annual Mennonite Philadelphia Mennonite Central Committee Festival and Benefit Auction (Where my test knit of Madison's Bell Lace Stole sold for $120, which I was very pleased about. (There were quilts that went for less than that. Which is more a commentary on how quilts do not sell in Philadelphia than a commentary on how awesomely well my stole did, but we'll just ignore that. And enjoy our new hand-quilted double-bed-sized Falling Blocks in lovely shades of green that we accidentally bought for $200.)

Also finished my first week of my new job, which was exhausting, even though I did almost nothing, but oh yay employment, and they seemed pleased with the almost-nothing I did, which is something. (And it's more than I did in my first week at my last job. Possibly more than I did in my first month at my last job. At least, if I don't count the daily work of living in Zambia.)

And I think that tomorrow I'm hauling all of my books and clothes and various possessions back to the third floor in order to make room for the Colombian ballet student who will be coming to live with us in early November.

( Also a meme. )

Because I have nothing better to do right now, I'm going to do one of those ( year-end memes )

. . . I seem to have done less in terms of substantive posting in the second half of this year and more pronouncements. Possibly this is related to being very busy.

( Meme from tigerlofu. AKA, Miriam Babbles. As per usual. Maybe I should just change this journal's title to Miriam Babbles. )

And now to pick eight people to tag:
relique, rumorofrain, bookaddict88, operafloozy, irianamistifi, chocochan, quincekumquat, and rockychristine

Stolen from chocochan's back entries.

The first ten people to comment get to request a drawing from me-- anything you want, with the caveat that if you try to break my brain I may have to do terrible things to you. Also with the caveat that I'm in Spain, and you may not get your drawing for quite a while, particularly if it requires more colors than black and blue and raspberry and charcoal grey and an odd shade of purple sharpie and possibly red, because those are the only writing implements I have at my disposal at the moment.
As per usual, in return you post this on your own blog (possibly with your own caveats. Unless you too happen to be in Spain and have the same colors of pen than I do.

Since I clearly don't have enough things to occupy me . . .

Comment on this post.
I will give you a letter.
Think of 5 fictional characters whose names begin with that letter and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

1. Ernest - From The Importance of Being Ernest, by Oscar Wilde. I'm talking about the guy who pretends that his name is Ernest, and falls in love with a girl who falls in love with this guy named Ernest, for whom it is very important to marry a guy named Ernest . . . and winds up discovering that his name actually is Ernest. It's an enjoyable and quite ridiculous play. I think that my high school put it on my sophomore year, and despite excellent intentions I didn't actually get around to seeing it.

2. Doctor Einstein, from Arsenic and Old Lace. Come to think of it, this may be an assumed name as well - the police certainly think so - but maybe not. This is certainly not the Einstein. I would find Dr. Einstein to be a quite likeable character if it weren't for the fact that he broke Johnny Brewster out of prison. Otherwise he seems weak-willed and a bit low on morals but fairly benign if left to his own devices. But the fact that he engineered a prison escape when his boss - who, to all appearances, is a lone agent and so wouldn't have cohorts to do anything to Dr E if he just turned and left - despite the fact that they don't get on at all is pretty dubious.

3. Evvy, from Tamora Pierce's Emlan universe. I liked Evvy a lot better before Melting Stones came out. I don't know how much this has to do with Evvy's tendency to whine, and how much to do with the fact that I found the actress's voice kind of annoying. Mind you, the actress was probably more annoying because the character was whining. I really do hope that Tamora Pierce goes back to third person again, though.

4. Ella, of Ella Enchanted. I loved that book when I was a kid. I still enjoy it, but not with the same fervor, alas.

5. Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. I have iTunes on Shuffle and "Loathing" came up. I like the music to the show Wicked a good deal. I tried reading the book when Violaclaire was into it and could not get into it at all.

You know the kind - the ones where you choose k characters and then look at the questions. In this case, k=10.

vorindi wrote the questions.

( characters and questions behind cut )

If you ask nicely and tell me how many characters you want it for, I might write you a list of questions.

I've actually been doing work for a lot of this week, so I haven't been posting as frequently as I have be wont to. But it's VERY quiet today, so I bring you:

So, as a break from working on my specfic paper (which actually feels pretty close to done at the moment), I think I'll do some more typing and answer the character meme that's been floating around.

( Read more... )

The chess match was this afternoon. After so frantic costuming and scurrying around, and a few very worried minutes in which pulsebeat and I were unsure if we were going to be able to get the chessboard to untangle (N.B. don't try to untangle it - instead, try to spead it out as much as possible. When you get to an edge, work along it until you can pull out a corner or two, then go along to the next edge, etc. Also, we rolled it when we put it away, so try unrolling first, if you can find something to unroll.

The chess games were a lot of fun. The computer-generated game was nice and bloody, but if we do that again I think that the kings should sit down and play the game sometime before, just so that they have an idea of what happens. I think that having the computer-played game first took a lot of pressure off of the players, so that it was easier to do a speed-chess game after.

I took many pictures, which I'm sure will be awesome. However, 260 megs of photos is far more than my photobucket account can handle, so I'll put them on facebook instead, and people can e-mail me if they want the nice big originals.

All of the costumes were amazing. I just have to put that out there.

And from Ellirpa: Pay It Forward: I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment here on my blog. I don’t know what that gift will be yet, but you will receive it within 365 days. The only thing you have to do in return is "pay it forward" by making a similar agreement on your blog.