Newsletter 2003
Jan. 23rd, 2006 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
filkferengiI rooted around to make sure this hadn't been posted, so it may be somewhat out-of-date, but is at least new.
Christmas, 2003
Hi!
Well, we got the year started off right, by a welcome visit from our British bud, Mike Bernardi. Mike spent a week with us, highlighted by going to GaFilk, the local filk [science fiction and fantasy music] convention. [See http://www.gafilk.org/.] Also fun was catching The Two Towers on the Imax screen, although it meant not getting home until 2 a.m. [not so fun for my accommodating spouse, who had work the next day]. With lots of bookstores and new places to eat, Mike fit very pleasantly into our hobbit household. We missed him when he left.
Nor was he the only one who left. Our cat died suddenly, much to our dismay; she was only 7 or so. When we went to the shelter a few days later, we boggled their minds by asking for their oldest, crankiest, female alpha cat. [Since we only ever have one cat at the time, we might as well.] Their oldest was only 2, & getting used to a young, active, skinny cat has been quite an adventure; Dolly’s quite fond of stalking-and-clawing games, at least with me. Himself remains unmolested. Let’s just say, my dodge skills have improved considerably.
I started going to some monthly meetings of ASFS, the Atlanta Science Fiction Society. They’re fun folks, & I do love the socializing, but it’s a long way to go, so I don’t make every month.
March was our 15th+ consecutive annual spring training pilgrimage [iow, baseball]. We went to Arizona. The trip was a blast. Since only 1 stadium in the whole Phoenix area has shade seats, I was able to trick my husband into me only having to go to one day game, getting to enjoy bookstores the other days. The art museum had a fabulous exhibit from the Philips Gallery in D. C.; there were originals by Renoir, El Greco, Goya, & lots of other dead dudes. It majorly rocked. We had dinner one night with some local email pals, 2 of which were lawyers & 1 of which was a paralegal, so the lawyer-of-my-life had folks to talk to.
We called in for messages on our way home, & my mom said Grandma had had a cerebral hemorrhage and was in the hospital. We got home at 2 a.m. Monday night & took my mom to the hospital the next day. Grandma died Tuesday night, having never regained consciousness. She was just a few months short of 88. Her burial plot was down in LaGrange, so there were trips down there nearly every day for arrangements. Even with all the prep Grandma had done [& she had really left things pretty well in order], there was so much to do, we hardly knew which way was up.
I don't think we told anybody much. Part of it was, after all, who would come so far, except a few nieces & nephews. Part of it was, I've picked up some of the spouse's secretiveness over the years. When his dad died, we didn't tell anybody then either. To be honest, most of it was, I was so busy dealing with our own reactions, I didn't want to have to deal with other people's. I'm talking, we didn't even tell any of Marty's frat brothers or my bridesmaid [which was kind of embarrassing months later when her mom asked how Grandma was {"oh, dead, thanks"}, but we coped the best we could at the time].
I gave the eulogy, & it went off pretty well [after all, I'd had all week to prep it, during the early morning hours when I was busy not-sleeping--you know how that goes]. My mom was relieved to have me handle that; funny, I was relieved to have her handle most of the other arrangements. We do what we can; words are my thing, & business is hers. My stepfather Max was pleased that the eulogy was under 20 minutes. Then we had people come up to the front. My husband surprised me by coming up.
It was a pretty good turnout, mostly nieces & nephews from around the southeast. There were 40-50. I had planned to target my cousin's kids, as the continuation-of-the-generations thing, but he thought it'd traumatize them too much. That's what last-minute rewrites are for. It was a tough crowd, but I still got some laughs. My masculine half had some good material about being afraid of Grandma's gun when we were dating. A couple of the more “religious” ones came up [you know, the one who always says the grace at the family dinners, reminding God of who He is every clause or so]. Although brief, it was nice, with the spring flowers and all. We had Grandma's favorites, yellow roses & purple. We wanted purple gladiolas, but they didn't bloom until the following week, at my house. Close enough, I guess.
We've been doing better than I had expected, when one of the pillars of the world goes away. It's strange, in lots of ways. There're the expected unexpected moments when your breath catches in your throat, & vision is optional. What's so unexpected is the relentless way life has of going on. It's disconcerting, to say the least, even to seasoned readers of Lois McMaster Bujold.
My heart's delight celebrated spring by painting the bathroom; I dragged us to lots of Celtic things, where we had fun, like the Celtic Festival and the Renaissance Faire.
Over the summer, we enjoyed hanging out with the ASFS folks [especially when free movie passes were involved ;)]. The spouse’s boss began to hint tantalizingly about selling the lawfirm to him. He also cut it back to exclusively title searches. Himself got to some baseball games, and I got to some housefilks [musical gatherings at someone’s house].
In September, we went to Toronto for TorCon & had a blast. We saw some old houses and gardens Grandma would've really enjoyed. There're more restaurants there than you can shake a [chocolate] torte at. We hung out with listies and ate lots of good food. Much to the baseball fan's disappointment, there was only one baseball game the whole week, but he found some listies to go with him. Multiple curries one night & a sandwich party another night--yum! You know my husband & I are really into free food. I never made it to the art show or any of the night filking, but did room parties with listies at night & taped concerts during the day. Getting enough sleep at a WorldCon is something of a scandal, but it sure made the recovery time easier. See http://www.dendarii.co.uk/Toronto/jerrie.html for details.
After nearly 3 years, I've finally figured out how to put minidisc recordings onto the hard drive, so I've been doing lots of that the last few weeks. As people find out about the con recordings I've made, I'm becoming all kinds of popular. ;)
In October I went to Albacon in Schenectady with a good friend [from Yankee country, no less!] to consort with some of my favorite authors, and Ze Man finally took over the lawfirm. A. A. Milne was wrong. Instead of being Now We Are Six, the correct title should be Now We Are Forty, which isn’t nearly so dreadful as it’s painted. He actually likes being ze beeg boss, of all things.
In November, we went to the Celtic Christmas Concert, and my handier half began excavating the scariest part of the garage: the Dreaded Work-Bench of Doom. I was wildly impressed. We spent Thanksgiving with my family. Since my cousin has all the kids, we let them have first dibs on leftovers, but it was still a fun time.
Last weekend was the holiday housefilk. Our local filks are usually exclusively musical, but it was a congenial crowd, so on my turn, I tried reciting some poetry; it went over well. The only problem was, our gracious hostess is an English professor; how’m I supposed to compete with that? We had fun.
At least until my car broke down on the way home. I was able to coast it to a hotel parking lot before it died, at 1:30 in the morning. My husband says it figures, given my “thrifty” proclivities, that I’d break down in a cheap motel {a dive, actually}. We were able to get the car to the shop, where the other one soon joined it. We only got the car back today, hence the lateness of this literary effort. The ASFS holiday party is next week. We’re looking forward to it, especially since finding out there’s at least one Neal Boortz [http://www.boortz.com/] fan in the group, so he’ll have something to talk about.
The year’s been more eventful that we maybe would’ve wished, but still a good year overall. May next year be more wondrous still, with tasty treats, fun friends, and insights abounding. Excelsior!
Christmas, 2003
Hi!
Well, we got the year started off right, by a welcome visit from our British bud, Mike Bernardi. Mike spent a week with us, highlighted by going to GaFilk, the local filk [science fiction and fantasy music] convention. [See http://www.gafilk.org/.] Also fun was catching The Two Towers on the Imax screen, although it meant not getting home until 2 a.m. [not so fun for my accommodating spouse, who had work the next day]. With lots of bookstores and new places to eat, Mike fit very pleasantly into our hobbit household. We missed him when he left.
Nor was he the only one who left. Our cat died suddenly, much to our dismay; she was only 7 or so. When we went to the shelter a few days later, we boggled their minds by asking for their oldest, crankiest, female alpha cat. [Since we only ever have one cat at the time, we might as well.] Their oldest was only 2, & getting used to a young, active, skinny cat has been quite an adventure; Dolly’s quite fond of stalking-and-clawing games, at least with me. Himself remains unmolested. Let’s just say, my dodge skills have improved considerably.
I started going to some monthly meetings of ASFS, the Atlanta Science Fiction Society. They’re fun folks, & I do love the socializing, but it’s a long way to go, so I don’t make every month.
March was our 15th+ consecutive annual spring training pilgrimage [iow, baseball]. We went to Arizona. The trip was a blast. Since only 1 stadium in the whole Phoenix area has shade seats, I was able to trick my husband into me only having to go to one day game, getting to enjoy bookstores the other days. The art museum had a fabulous exhibit from the Philips Gallery in D. C.; there were originals by Renoir, El Greco, Goya, & lots of other dead dudes. It majorly rocked. We had dinner one night with some local email pals, 2 of which were lawyers & 1 of which was a paralegal, so the lawyer-of-my-life had folks to talk to.
We called in for messages on our way home, & my mom said Grandma had had a cerebral hemorrhage and was in the hospital. We got home at 2 a.m. Monday night & took my mom to the hospital the next day. Grandma died Tuesday night, having never regained consciousness. She was just a few months short of 88. Her burial plot was down in LaGrange, so there were trips down there nearly every day for arrangements. Even with all the prep Grandma had done [& she had really left things pretty well in order], there was so much to do, we hardly knew which way was up.
I don't think we told anybody much. Part of it was, after all, who would come so far, except a few nieces & nephews. Part of it was, I've picked up some of the spouse's secretiveness over the years. When his dad died, we didn't tell anybody then either. To be honest, most of it was, I was so busy dealing with our own reactions, I didn't want to have to deal with other people's. I'm talking, we didn't even tell any of Marty's frat brothers or my bridesmaid [which was kind of embarrassing months later when her mom asked how Grandma was {"oh, dead, thanks"}, but we coped the best we could at the time].
I gave the eulogy, & it went off pretty well [after all, I'd had all week to prep it, during the early morning hours when I was busy not-sleeping--you know how that goes]. My mom was relieved to have me handle that; funny, I was relieved to have her handle most of the other arrangements. We do what we can; words are my thing, & business is hers. My stepfather Max was pleased that the eulogy was under 20 minutes. Then we had people come up to the front. My husband surprised me by coming up.
It was a pretty good turnout, mostly nieces & nephews from around the southeast. There were 40-50. I had planned to target my cousin's kids, as the continuation-of-the-generations thing, but he thought it'd traumatize them too much. That's what last-minute rewrites are for. It was a tough crowd, but I still got some laughs. My masculine half had some good material about being afraid of Grandma's gun when we were dating. A couple of the more “religious” ones came up [you know, the one who always says the grace at the family dinners, reminding God of who He is every clause or so]. Although brief, it was nice, with the spring flowers and all. We had Grandma's favorites, yellow roses & purple. We wanted purple gladiolas, but they didn't bloom until the following week, at my house. Close enough, I guess.
We've been doing better than I had expected, when one of the pillars of the world goes away. It's strange, in lots of ways. There're the expected unexpected moments when your breath catches in your throat, & vision is optional. What's so unexpected is the relentless way life has of going on. It's disconcerting, to say the least, even to seasoned readers of Lois McMaster Bujold.
My heart's delight celebrated spring by painting the bathroom; I dragged us to lots of Celtic things, where we had fun, like the Celtic Festival and the Renaissance Faire.
Over the summer, we enjoyed hanging out with the ASFS folks [especially when free movie passes were involved ;)]. The spouse’s boss began to hint tantalizingly about selling the lawfirm to him. He also cut it back to exclusively title searches. Himself got to some baseball games, and I got to some housefilks [musical gatherings at someone’s house].
In September, we went to Toronto for TorCon & had a blast. We saw some old houses and gardens Grandma would've really enjoyed. There're more restaurants there than you can shake a [chocolate] torte at. We hung out with listies and ate lots of good food. Much to the baseball fan's disappointment, there was only one baseball game the whole week, but he found some listies to go with him. Multiple curries one night & a sandwich party another night--yum! You know my husband & I are really into free food. I never made it to the art show or any of the night filking, but did room parties with listies at night & taped concerts during the day. Getting enough sleep at a WorldCon is something of a scandal, but it sure made the recovery time easier. See http://www.dendarii.co.uk/Toronto/jerrie.html for details.
After nearly 3 years, I've finally figured out how to put minidisc recordings onto the hard drive, so I've been doing lots of that the last few weeks. As people find out about the con recordings I've made, I'm becoming all kinds of popular. ;)
In October I went to Albacon in Schenectady with a good friend [from Yankee country, no less!] to consort with some of my favorite authors, and Ze Man finally took over the lawfirm. A. A. Milne was wrong. Instead of being Now We Are Six, the correct title should be Now We Are Forty, which isn’t nearly so dreadful as it’s painted. He actually likes being ze beeg boss, of all things.
In November, we went to the Celtic Christmas Concert, and my handier half began excavating the scariest part of the garage: the Dreaded Work-Bench of Doom. I was wildly impressed. We spent Thanksgiving with my family. Since my cousin has all the kids, we let them have first dibs on leftovers, but it was still a fun time.
Last weekend was the holiday housefilk. Our local filks are usually exclusively musical, but it was a congenial crowd, so on my turn, I tried reciting some poetry; it went over well. The only problem was, our gracious hostess is an English professor; how’m I supposed to compete with that? We had fun.
At least until my car broke down on the way home. I was able to coast it to a hotel parking lot before it died, at 1:30 in the morning. My husband says it figures, given my “thrifty” proclivities, that I’d break down in a cheap motel {a dive, actually}. We were able to get the car to the shop, where the other one soon joined it. We only got the car back today, hence the lateness of this literary effort. The ASFS holiday party is next week. We’re looking forward to it, especially since finding out there’s at least one Neal Boortz [http://www.boortz.com/] fan in the group, so he’ll have something to talk about.
The year’s been more eventful that we maybe would’ve wished, but still a good year overall. May next year be more wondrous still, with tasty treats, fun friends, and insights abounding. Excelsior!
