Monday, October 27, 2003
Do you all RenFest where you are? People RenFest with a vengeance down here in Houston. I haven't RenFested in about 20 years, but I did two weekends ago. The biggest thing I got out of it? The knowledge that one should RenFest once about every 20 years, just so you'll remember why you don't RenFest.
The Best Things About the Houston RenFest:
1. It doesn't take place in Houston! You have to drive about an hour north of town, out to a strip of land owned by a bunch of monks who lease the land to the RenFest people. The site is really nice, with lots of trees and fresh air. If you're lucky like we were and don't go after a rain, it's not even very muddy.
2. It doesn't take place in Houston! Which means that the insane traffic jams that it creates don't contribute to the insane traffic jams that Houston creates.
3. (ONLY VALID FOR MEN AND LESBIANS) Women in chain-mail bikinis.
The Worst Things About the Houston RenFest:
1. It doesn't take place in Houston! Which means that in order to pay $21 for the right to wander around in a field surrounded by pseudo-17th century shops, you actually have to drive an hour out of town!
2. The pseudo-17th century shops selling crappy imported carvings from Malaysia and Korea.
3. The pseudo-17th century shops selling crappy imported jewelry of the type you see idiots buying on eBay all the time.
4. The pseudo-17th century shops selling crappy local -ha! gotcha!- leather goods with a total of about 6 designs repeated ad nauseum with dye that looks like it would rub off the first time your hands got sweaty.
5. The pseudo-17th century shops selling the same crappy imported carvings from Malaysia and Korea, the same crappy imported jewelry of the type you see idiots buying on eBay all the time, and the same crappy local leather goods with a total of about 6 designs with dye that looks like it would rub off the first time your hand got sweaty - and selling all this crap over and over and over again in a bunch of pseudo-different shops but they're all actually the same with the exact same merchandise!
6. Did I mention the pseudo-17th century shops selling crappy reproductions of crappy pastel fantasy art? Lots of dragons and large breasted but hardly covered women with wind in their hair. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
The Best Things About the Houston RenFest:
1. It doesn't take place in Houston! You have to drive about an hour north of town, out to a strip of land owned by a bunch of monks who lease the land to the RenFest people. The site is really nice, with lots of trees and fresh air. If you're lucky like we were and don't go after a rain, it's not even very muddy.
2. It doesn't take place in Houston! Which means that the insane traffic jams that it creates don't contribute to the insane traffic jams that Houston creates.
3. (ONLY VALID FOR MEN AND LESBIANS) Women in chain-mail bikinis.
The Worst Things About the Houston RenFest:
1. It doesn't take place in Houston! Which means that in order to pay $21 for the right to wander around in a field surrounded by pseudo-17th century shops, you actually have to drive an hour out of town!
2. The pseudo-17th century shops selling crappy imported carvings from Malaysia and Korea.
3. The pseudo-17th century shops selling crappy imported jewelry of the type you see idiots buying on eBay all the time.
4. The pseudo-17th century shops selling crappy local -ha! gotcha!- leather goods with a total of about 6 designs repeated ad nauseum with dye that looks like it would rub off the first time your hands got sweaty.
5. The pseudo-17th century shops selling the same crappy imported carvings from Malaysia and Korea, the same crappy imported jewelry of the type you see idiots buying on eBay all the time, and the same crappy local leather goods with a total of about 6 designs with dye that looks like it would rub off the first time your hand got sweaty - and selling all this crap over and over and over again in a bunch of pseudo-different shops but they're all actually the same with the exact same merchandise!
6. Did I mention the pseudo-17th century shops selling crappy reproductions of crappy pastel fantasy art? Lots of dragons and large breasted but hardly covered women with wind in their hair. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Thursday, October 16, 2003
A week of doom or just - nothing's gone quite right.
Husband's best friend's wedding this past Saturday - the couple was beautiful, the food was delicious, the cake was lovely - but the humidity was 95%, the temperatures were in the low 90's, , the ants were of the fire variety, the wind had left the state for the day, and I stood in front of the video camera for about half of their vows. I know they like me but I don't know that they wanted me right there, right then.
After the wedding, go visit husband's Dad. Sit and chat, laugh and chuckle, then Dad's partner comes home. I get up to go get a Coke and she nails me in the utility room to tell me Dad has an official Alzheimer's diagnosis and his doctor gives him 6 months before he needs "one on one" care and, but that might be the good news because the scan results looking for lung cancer haven't come back yet, and they're more worried about a stroke/heart attack because of the constant dehydration.
Think about it: you could die because you can't remember to pick up the glass of water on the table next to you and drink it.
Then my whiney little life starts again on - Tuesday, supposed to get back the SECOND printing of 500 letters that were supposed to be in the mail LAST week, but no letters Wednesday no letters Thursday finally - no, silly, not letters - word that (Gasp Choke Glad It's On Email and Not on the Phone) we'll get the letters back MONDAY. They were supposed to be in the mail (2nd time) TODAY. Who said fundraising isn't frustrating? We have great volunteers who are maybe just a little too vital to their jobs...grrrrrrrrr.
Today - bought a Swiffer duster. Dusted the living room. It worked, but I didn't feel the need to dance.
Husband's best friend's wedding this past Saturday - the couple was beautiful, the food was delicious, the cake was lovely - but the humidity was 95%, the temperatures were in the low 90's, , the ants were of the fire variety, the wind had left the state for the day, and I stood in front of the video camera for about half of their vows. I know they like me but I don't know that they wanted me right there, right then.
After the wedding, go visit husband's Dad. Sit and chat, laugh and chuckle, then Dad's partner comes home. I get up to go get a Coke and she nails me in the utility room to tell me Dad has an official Alzheimer's diagnosis and his doctor gives him 6 months before he needs "one on one" care and, but that might be the good news because the scan results looking for lung cancer haven't come back yet, and they're more worried about a stroke/heart attack because of the constant dehydration.
Think about it: you could die because you can't remember to pick up the glass of water on the table next to you and drink it.
Then my whiney little life starts again on - Tuesday, supposed to get back the SECOND printing of 500 letters that were supposed to be in the mail LAST week, but no letters Wednesday no letters Thursday finally - no, silly, not letters - word that (Gasp Choke Glad It's On Email and Not on the Phone) we'll get the letters back MONDAY. They were supposed to be in the mail (2nd time) TODAY. Who said fundraising isn't frustrating? We have great volunteers who are maybe just a little too vital to their jobs...grrrrrrrrr.
Today - bought a Swiffer duster. Dusted the living room. It worked, but I didn't feel the need to dance.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
At some point back in 1997, my father died. Later that year, his wife was slowly going through his stuff and one of the many things that ended up being given to me was a book called You Gotta Play Hurt by Dan Jenkins.
"This is the (sacred) book your father was reading when he went to the hospital for the last time," she said to me in that still very, very heavy accent even after 30 years of living in Houston. Note: the sacred part is my insertion - it was just understood that everything that was directly related to Daddy was sacred. Even me, for a while anyway. Long story about that for later when both you and I are really drunk and sitting on the floor together, trying to remember why we quit smoking.
I took the book home that day along with his (sacred) penny counting machine, his (sacred) diamond tie tack in the shape of an oil well drill bit (the three bits actually do move and if I wanted to work at it I might be able to use it to create a miniature diamond tie tack oil well) and his (sacred) blue and white stripped bath robe that she thought I had ruined a few years before anyway by washing instead of dry cleaning it.
My first thought was - well, this looks like a self-help book and, while I know Daddy was desperate to live those last few years and would have tried almost anything, I didn't think he had sunk that low. So I stuck the book on a shelf and didn't pay any attention to it.
A couple of years later, in 1999, I bought a house. When I was packing up to move I almost did away with this book but, remember, it's a sacred relic, so I packed it and hauled it over here. I've developed a system to keep up with books here in the house. I have a big bench in the front hallway and I keep all the books I haven't read yet piled up on the left. Books get piled up on the right as I read them. Slowly, I either just give them to friends or I register them on Bookcrossing.com (link is to the left) and release them into the wild.
For five years, this book has been sitting at the bottom of the Not Read Yet Pile, and this past weekend I was out of everything to read and that includes some really crappy sci-fi that I actually stooped to which my husband had left laying around. So I was in the hallway and I picked up this book of Daddy's. I read the fly leaf. I found out it isn't a self-help-whine. It's a novel. A novel about a sports writer, yeah, but I was desperate.
Well it's one of those things, folks. I fell in love with this book in the first paragraph, which I've put down below to convince you this is a great book written by a soul deeply kindred to my own. I can't believe it's taken me so long to read it. I now have to go buy everything else this joker ever wrote. And now I feel really sorry for Daddy, because he never got past the third chapter. Now that's a freaking tragedy, I think. To die in the middle of a really good book.
Here's how I want the phony little conniving, no-talent, preppiewad asshole of an editor to die: I lace his decaf with Seconal and strap him down in such a way that his head is fastened to my desk and I thump him at cheery intervals with the carriage on my Olympia standard. I'm a stubborn guy who still works on a geezer-codger manual anyhow, so I write a paragraph I admire, the kind he likes to dick around with, especially if it's my lead, then I sling the carriage at him, and WHACK - he gets it in the temple, sometimes the ear. Yeah, it would be slow, but death by typewriter is what the fuckhead deserves.
"This is the (sacred) book your father was reading when he went to the hospital for the last time," she said to me in that still very, very heavy accent even after 30 years of living in Houston. Note: the sacred part is my insertion - it was just understood that everything that was directly related to Daddy was sacred. Even me, for a while anyway. Long story about that for later when both you and I are really drunk and sitting on the floor together, trying to remember why we quit smoking.
I took the book home that day along with his (sacred) penny counting machine, his (sacred) diamond tie tack in the shape of an oil well drill bit (the three bits actually do move and if I wanted to work at it I might be able to use it to create a miniature diamond tie tack oil well) and his (sacred) blue and white stripped bath robe that she thought I had ruined a few years before anyway by washing instead of dry cleaning it.
My first thought was - well, this looks like a self-help book and, while I know Daddy was desperate to live those last few years and would have tried almost anything, I didn't think he had sunk that low. So I stuck the book on a shelf and didn't pay any attention to it.
A couple of years later, in 1999, I bought a house. When I was packing up to move I almost did away with this book but, remember, it's a sacred relic, so I packed it and hauled it over here. I've developed a system to keep up with books here in the house. I have a big bench in the front hallway and I keep all the books I haven't read yet piled up on the left. Books get piled up on the right as I read them. Slowly, I either just give them to friends or I register them on Bookcrossing.com (link is to the left) and release them into the wild.
For five years, this book has been sitting at the bottom of the Not Read Yet Pile, and this past weekend I was out of everything to read and that includes some really crappy sci-fi that I actually stooped to which my husband had left laying around. So I was in the hallway and I picked up this book of Daddy's. I read the fly leaf. I found out it isn't a self-help-whine. It's a novel. A novel about a sports writer, yeah, but I was desperate.
Well it's one of those things, folks. I fell in love with this book in the first paragraph, which I've put down below to convince you this is a great book written by a soul deeply kindred to my own. I can't believe it's taken me so long to read it. I now have to go buy everything else this joker ever wrote. And now I feel really sorry for Daddy, because he never got past the third chapter. Now that's a freaking tragedy, I think. To die in the middle of a really good book.
Here's how I want the phony little conniving, no-talent, preppiewad asshole of an editor to die: I lace his decaf with Seconal and strap him down in such a way that his head is fastened to my desk and I thump him at cheery intervals with the carriage on my Olympia standard. I'm a stubborn guy who still works on a geezer-codger manual anyhow, so I write a paragraph I admire, the kind he likes to dick around with, especially if it's my lead, then I sling the carriage at him, and WHACK - he gets it in the temple, sometimes the ear. Yeah, it would be slow, but death by typewriter is what the fuckhead deserves.
Thursday, October 02, 2003
Had a shooting contest with husband yesterday because he just couldn't get past me doing so much better than him this past weekend. We tied with groupings of 2.25 inches. I feel a rematch coming on.
Ate at a place called Lasagna House. Didn't order lasagna of course because my mother's recipe ruined me for all other lasagnas many many years ago but I really like the place because one of the appetizers is, quite simply, meatballs.
I actually ordered meatballs as a side to accompany my seafood ravioli and wished I had ordered meatballs for my meal. Loved it - a simple white plate, two huge, dignified meatballs, and a slathering of delicious, thick, chunky tomato sauce.
Ate at a place called Lasagna House. Didn't order lasagna of course because my mother's recipe ruined me for all other lasagnas many many years ago but I really like the place because one of the appetizers is, quite simply, meatballs.
I actually ordered meatballs as a side to accompany my seafood ravioli and wished I had ordered meatballs for my meal. Loved it - a simple white plate, two huge, dignified meatballs, and a slathering of delicious, thick, chunky tomato sauce.
