Too much stuff has been going on; every time I try to sit down and sum it all up, I don't even know where to start.

So, instead, a meme, as seen randomly on ye olde DW circle --

What is the first TV show you remember watching?

Dark Shadows, the original, creepy, gothic cheese-fest. I was 5? I hid behind the couch b/c I wasn't allowed to watch but I was just sucked into the melodrama.

What is the first “grown up” TV show you watched?

See above, lol

Have you ever been in a wedding bridal party? What was your role? What did your outfit look like that you wore for the day?

Soooooo many, hah. (At least a half-dozen, not counting my own. At various moves, I've handed off a burgundy off-the-shoulder long dress (maid of honor), a turquoise tea-length with an iridescent chiffon overlay (bridesmaid and general errand runner), a pastel flowered tea length with a portrait collar (bridesmaid and keeper of the good champagne), and a black, fitted strapless sheath with sheer illusion long sleeves (from when Oldest was a ring-bearer and I was there to keep the peace.) But my first was THE BEST EVER. When I was 11 or 12, one of my younger aunts got married in the most giant, OTT wedding ever and I was a junior bridesmaid (along with a sister of the groom. My brother and the groom's younger brother were altar boys, though there were 3 priests also involved in the ceremony, so the kids just sat around in their robes.) It was the 1970s; the girls (bridesmaids, jr bridesmaids, flower girls and maids of honor (yes, 2) wore aqua (polyester) long gowns with ruffles criss-crossing our bosoms. The groomsmen wore cut-velvet dinner jackets, with swirly patterns cut into them and aqua ruffled shirts. The mothers wore gowns that were a sort of orange-y melon satin and a fuschia chiffon, while the fathers (two 50ish Polish and Italian immigrant steelworkers) rocked the fuck out of the same godawful dinner jackets with peach and pink ruffled shirts, to match their wives. There were 28 people in the bridal party (not counting the bride and groom), we made it through a High Mass with a full choir and at least 4 soloists singing every response and the aforementioned 3 priests (the parish priest, the priest who ran the volunteer group my aunt worked with and the groom's family priest) all having to speak. The reception was held at the Polish Falcon Hall where the cake was 5 layers with a (working) water fountain in the middle and 5 or 6 heart-shaped little sub-cakes connected by arched bridges to the main cake with the fountain and tiers AND at some point during a very vigorous polka, someone went careening into the cake table, knocking it down, and there was a small explosion as the water from the fountain shorted out the motor that was running the pump.

It was at this point that I swore there would not be an open bar at my own wedding, that I was not paying for my genial alcoholic family to go out and get smashed, and though it was nearly 20 years later, reader, there was not.

What is your ethnic background that you’re aware of?

Italian (Calabria) on my mother's side; Polish-Russian (from the part of Poland that always got the Russian invasions so who knows exactly who was what) on my father's. (I will tell you, though, that I looked up at one point during the second season of The Witcher as Vesomir started talking and said (to BabyBoy) words to the effect of holy shit, that's your grandfather. He even had the same mustache for a while, oy.

What was the last hotel you stayed in and where? Did you like it?

Well, we stayed at Old Key West and the Beach Club the last few times we went to Disney World, but those are technically condos, so I dunno if they count? We spent a couple of nights at the Swan at WDW before we moved over to the Beach Club in October. I mean, we do this almost every year, so yes, I do like them but that's kind of a given. The last hotel that *wasn't* attached to WDW was the Ritz Carlton Amelia Island, because I needed to use some free-night certificates before they expired and that was the nicest hotel within driving distance. It was beautiful and very upscale (I mean, it was a Ritz, so, yeah) and our room had a great ocean view, but if I go there again, I might be tempted to go with one of the rooms that don't have a balcony but have a patio with a fire table on it. I don't know, though--it really was a fabulous view.

Still here, still plugging along. Who knew 2021 was going to be like a reboot of 2020 where time means nothing? The weather has finally started edging into autumn which is such a relief, but we had so much rain in late summer that the trees are still really green. It's a bit of a cognitive whiplash.

( cutting for caregiver ramblings b/c that's 90% of what I think about these days )

( cutting for random medical stuff for me )

( work stuff )

The best thing that's happened is that L & the other Beach Week moms kidnapped me to Hilton Head, where I didn't have to do anything but sit in the hot tub and put on the (super comfy but still cute) dresses they had for me to go to dinner. It was pretty awesome not to have to think about anything other than whether I wanted coconut rum in my Dole Whip float or if I wanted to go with the spiced dark rum on that run to the snack bar. At some point, I'll get a few pictures up on Insta. (scenery only prob)

Reading has been at a total standstill lately, with about a dozen books going back to the library with maybe 20 pages read in each. Even at HH, I couldn't summon the focus to even read graphic novels. The only saving grace has been a run of Elizabeth Peters' books that I read in the 70s and 80s that are available w/o purchase on Audible. The narrator for the Included In Your Membership versions is not the best, but she's good enough for keeping my brain from spiraling while I do the dishes or dust or whatever. I still have 13 books on hold at the library, trying to figure out what might work, so maybe this logjam will break? I hate not being able to read; it makes me cranky as shit.

The other good thing is that I've cracked 30k words on the Darcy/Bucky slow-burn romance fic and sort of know where I'm going next with it all (all in the quest for the HEA that my brain always demands.)

So, yeah: waiting in the eye of the storm, still rated on the Teen end of Mature (though at some point I could see this going over hard into Explicit, because, myGOD but they are taking this slowly and when something finally gives, I feel like it's going to go nuclear.)

Yoy, I didn't mean for it to be such a gap between posts. I mean, I read my circle and try to comment, but then it's another level of umph to think of something to say. Even if I see a Friday Five or a daily question meme, it takes me a ridiculous amount of time to compose an answer, which is the segue to the travel-related, semi-recent Friday Five ( under the cut )

Have a good weekend, y'all!

It's been... quite a while, whoops. Work got ridiculous and I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with going to the office every day and #2Son is taking more classes on campus (which is so exciting I can't even tell you but means I'm either dropping him off or picking him up 4 days/week, which is adding to the logistical issues.) And then, we're having work done at the house, so I've been dancing around crews in and out of the house, plus clearing out rooms/cleaning up the dust after (omg, SO MUCH DUST. EVERYWHERE.)

Also, it was Winter and I was hating the world (as usual) so there's not much reason to spread those nasty vibes around.

Anyway, I tried to read my circle and drop a comment here and there, with at least some minimal success, but it's spring now and I got in a dose of Disney therapy and the stupid work project got shifted to another team (where it more logically belongs, even though it's still stupid) and I am finding it easier to breathe, tfg, and I'm hoping to be back a little bit more.

So, in the middle of all of that nonsense, I was still commuting by train, so I did get some quality reading/audiobook/netflix download time and that seems like a good thing to talk about...

firstly, I blasted through the last four of the Rivers of London series, all on audiobook (which is how I've done all of them.) I'm not sure what ignited the frenzy, but I did Broken Homes, Foxglove Summer, The Hanging Tree, and Lies Sleeping in less than a month, which is something like 45 hours of audio (and I was listening at normal speed, not 1.25x or 1.5). This is entirely due to how awesome Kobna Holdbrook-Smith is as a narrator. I'm pretty sure I never would have made it through Aaronovitch's odes to London architecture if not for how dynamic and engaging the narration was. At one point, BabyBoy (the BFA acting kid) made me replay a couple of scenes as we drove so he could tease out the variations in accents and inflections and take notes for a class, so that was fun. Now I'm all caught up and would be in withdrawal if I hadn't finished the last one right before I hit Disney World (which usually clears everything out of my head by dint of complete overstimulation.)

Anyway, A+++++, would listen again, must go see if they've done audio of the novellas (and go look for post-canon fic while waiting for more books.) (Oh, and here's a little book trailer for one of the novellas to give you a taste of the stories/narration.)

I also remembered that I could download shows from Netflix and thus watch things w/o burning through data (which is a thing around the HoB, as we all share this cheap, grandfathered plan that is enough for regular use, but not so much for streaming and I'm currently not in favor of an extra $100/month for an unlimited plan.) So, that's enabled a fair amount of stuff, most gloriously Samin Nosrat's Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, which was *such* cognitive whiplash to watch while schlepping to/fro on the train. Still, it was incredibly soothing to have her voice in my head during the dreary winter commutes, where it was gray and dark in both directions. (The link goes to the book, but as lovely as it is, the series is just over-the-top beautiful and nourishing.)

Also food-related, the boys got me Chrissy Teigen's new cookbook for Christmas (Hungry for More), which I initially assumed was just going to be a fun read (it's like the longform of her twitter/insta, if you're a fan) but has turned out to be a solid source of actual recipes. We're currently 3-for-3 in total wins (the scallop linguini with casino breadcrumbs, chicken teriyaki burgers, and seared fish with herby brown butter.) Honey-garlic shrimp is next on the cooking agenda.

If you follow me on insta/twitter/fb, you probably noticed that we hit Disney World over spring break. Yes, I know you're shocked. It was just D & I, though, as nobody's spring breaks aligned and there are tickets that are expiring soon (and it goes w/o saying that I'm not giving Disney corporate money for things I haven't used.) So, that was fun -- I got a deal on Priceline that got the Beach Club down to breathable rates; we ended up calling a Minnie Van one morning to get to Magic Kingdom; and D turned out to be a FastPass-refreshing savant, so we had excellent times/rides. I upgraded to an annual pass while we were there and I'm going with the boys in May, once everyone's finals are done with and before BabyBoy starts the summer theater stuff. (Also to clear out their soon-to-be-expiring tickets.)

The key part of that last paragraph is that I'm now in possession of a WDW Annual Pass. So. If you're feeling the need to run away to Walt's giant playground, ping me & let's see if we can link up. :D

Okay, if you're still reading, I ♥ you and regardless, I hope you have a good day (/week/month!)

This not-working-from-home thing is kinda lame. I am reserving judgement until I see what kind of stock grant they’re talking about, but I’m (privately) putting them on notice because I am not sure I want to keep going into an office 5 days/week and having to sort the rest of life out on the fringes. I know that’s how most people work, but I’m not sure I want to go back to that, at least not w/o any significant financial incentive. (Or, I’m just having my regularly scheduled omg-school-started-I-hate-life freakout--it's hard to say.)
/whine

So, there’s some travel stuff coming up, maybe I can see some of you…?

Sun/Mon, Aug 20-21 – Eclipse Day – I’m taking the easy way out and just going up north a bit, around Lake Hartwell. (Fingers crossed for weather.)

Thurs-Mon, Aug 31-Sept4 – DragonCon – We’re in the same hotel as recent years and you all know how much I &heart; the bartenders at Pulse in the Marriott, so yell at me if you’re going to be around. No cosplay this year, unless I throw together some random steampunk persona.

Fri-Sun, Sept8-10 – NYC!! – I have to burn some Ritz-Carlton free nights and this is literally the only weekend between now & Nov that D’s & my schedules align. I haven’t booked flights yet, but we’ll be staying down in the Financial District (b/c, see above, re: free.) I have no idea what my dear, darling husband wants to do, but I generally have to keep him busy, so I’m thinking a walking tour on Saturday morning, ending in Brooklyn & then maybe a show on Sat night & I don’t know what on Sunday morning, but maybe the Met…?

There's possibly a little bit more to come, but I have to see how kids' schedules shake out.


....aaaaaand I'm late for Wednesday books, but that’s not much of a surprise by this point, right?

finished
Dark Days Club, Alison Goodman – So very much a Regency Buffy, which is not a bad thing, just amusing. Good world-building, both the Regency and the demon stuff—I really felt like she loved both sources and worked hard to integrate them. I’ll have to see if the library has the next one.

A Queen From The North, Erin McRae, Racheline Maltese – You all know how much I love me a modern-day, marry-the-prince romance (well, when I’m not ranting about how poorly it was executed), and this one has the added catnip of an alternate history timeline that is actually rooted in the War of Roses and all of that fallout, so when I saw/heard this on one of the romance blogs (I’m thinking it was redheadedgirl on Smart Bitches, b/c our tastes tend to align) I snagged it up and inhaled it in a day. (I ask you: what’s not to love about a marriage-of-convenience-turned-real plot? Well, again: the execution of it all.) Verdict: goooooood. And more to come. The romance itself was a little low-key, but the supporting characters were good (and wonderfully not a solid wall of white-cis-het) and while yes, most of the obstacles could have been avoided by actual communication between the principals, it felt like everybody’s reasons for avoidance were real (stupid, but real, which is so true) so that worked for me—I am looking forward to the next in the series.

Warrior’s Apprentice, Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by someone who was fine, but not worth going to find the listing as I write this – The House of Boys loooooves the Vorkosigans, and since I have worked my way through their other love (Dresden), I figured I’d go for these, too. I was entertained, though the cover image is horrible and I could have gone for someone reading this who was closer in age to the teenaged Miles. Minor quibbles, though. I need to line up the next one because #2Son is leading off our conversations as I leave the office with things like, “seriously, don’t be looking at your twitter feed at stoplights. You need to keep yourself distracted until you’re home,” which is probably not untrue. I’m really only reading to get to A Civil Campaign and the most recent novel about Cordelia, but I’ll go through the intervening steps.


now
The Darwath Trilogy, Barbara Hambly – I got sidetracked on this one b/c Dark Days was horribly overdue and then Queen came zooming in out of nowhere and totally sideswiped my attention, but I made myself pick it back up last night to keep from cycling through twitter endlessly.


next
I need to maybe grab the next Peter Grant or Vorkosigan on audio, and then go through what BabyBoy brought back from the Shared Worlds book giveaway. I’m 6 books behind on my book challenge, but part of that is because I get into series and end up reading 4 books where only 1 counts toward the specific trope or setting or whatever for the challenge.


Ciao, kids!

When last we chatted about spring break at Disney World, I mentioned that my brother was not a Disney person at all, and that he was coming along with us because he wanted to spend time with the boys and we were already set for WDW. I think we decided that he'd seen Finding Nemo and Up, and possibly The Lion King, but certainly none of the princesses. Please keep in mind that he is a Slytherin (we made him take the Pottermore quiz while waiting in line at Universal—he had no idea what we were talking about with the Houses before that) engineering site manager who does things like go swimming in a mountain lake as soon as the ice breaks up.

Reader, he arrived on Saturday afternoon. By Monday morning, he was whistling Be Our Guest as he made breakfast.

Such is the power of the Land of Mickey. ;D

NB: I see that SUP has done… something… to LJ, and really, I think I've hit my limit in trying to figure out what to do with it all, so for now, I'm posting to DW and once I get our taxes done I'll see if I feel like sorting it all out one more time and going back to cross-posting.

I am sous vide-ing pork chops for dinner, which is going to take about an hour. I'd planned to clean up the utter disaster that is my kitchen while that happened, but then I fumble-fingered an 8 oz container of dried thyme and artistically sprayed it across the floor and decided I should probably sit down and breathe for a while.

BabyBoy is off to camp tomorrow, so we've been doing laundry and filling out forms all day (really ALL DAY--I think the last time I really did concentrated laundry was somewhere in the middle of Beach Week. The 7th (and LAST, YAY) load is in the dryer now (not counting sheets and towels other than those necessary for camp) so the end is nigh, tfg) and there was a run to the grocery store early this morning, as every time I went to make something once we got home from NYC, I couldn't find half of what we needed and I am tired of take-out.

But! let's talk about food, yes? Mostly I want to talk about it b/c I want to whine about the reservations I ended up canceling when it was for sure BabyBoy coming with me, not D. I mean, on the one hand, BB eats very adventurously (much moreso than his father), but on the other, I'm not quite ready to take my 16 year old to restaurants with Michelin stars.

So, it was with Great Regret that I canceled reservations for Peter Luger Steakhouse (for D) and Le Bernardin (for me.) It's been more than 2 weeks since I canceled them and I still weep. An 8 p.m. Friday night reservation at Peter Luger! 8 p.m. (::weeps::) I don't want to talk about having to let go a table at Le Bernardin on Saturday night.

sigh

It was fine, I know, I know, this is hardly a real world problem. We shifted to a much more casual and open plan, and I think it worked really well. We did MoMA's free Friday hours (terribly crowded but still worth the walk) and then went to Toalache on Friday night, which was super-fun and very very good, even if we didn't find the courage to try the grasshopper tacos. (Apparently, BB can eat anything off an Asian menu, even if it has tentacles, but he drew the line at grasshoppers.) We mostly ate breakfast at the hotel (it came with the room, and ended up being room service which was a terrific timesaver, too.) On Saturday, we walked from Times Square down to the Strand, stopping at Bryant Park, where he wandered around and bought I know not what while I made the obligatory visit to the library. And then we spent some ridiculous amount of time at the farmers/green market at Union Square, where he zeroed in on anyone who had anything that looked immediately edible, especially the bakers. He did pretty good. But I did walk him a long way that day, so we had to detour to 8th Avenue on the way back, where there was a street fair in progress so he could eat MORE, despite early reservations for pre-theater dinner. 28" waists fall off him, too. So not fair.

Dinner that night was Becco on 46th Street, which satisfied some serious Italian cravings. (It was also walking distance from the hotel and the theater, b/c I was not taking any chances with the curtain time.) And somehow, after having spent the better part of 2 days with me (AND having Pokémon Go on his phone) he managed to behave well enough that the ladies at the table next to us (all 60+) felt the need to tell me what a well-brought up young man he was (I decided they probably hadn't actually heard our conversation, as it centered on League of Legends (he's ranked pretty high), Orange Is The New Black, and the afore-mentioned Pokémon Go. But hey, we'd already had our political and social conversation while sitting in various airport lounges with CNN on constant loops.)

Breakfast on Sunday included both the room service stuff and a uber down to Russ & Daughters for actual NY bagels and schmear. It was Good. And then we came back up to Times Square so my geeky, Daredevil-loving kid could say he'd walked through Hell's Kitchen on the way to the Intrepid, before we walked over to see Wicked. Spoiler alert: there were treats at intermission. We didn't eat an actual lunch or dinner (after all that, you're shocked, I know) but we hung out on the 8th floor, outdoor lounge at the Marriott Marquis overlooking Times Square and grazed through their (so-so) apps menu (but the view was great and our server was the nicest woman in the world), until someone who is not me had their phone die from too much Pokémon hunting while doing all this walking. The weather, btw, was amazing--almost too cool but just fabulous.

Also, the AmEx Centurion Lounge at LaGuardia is worth the hassle of getting to Concourse B if you need food/drink/a computer/printer. They have actual food. And they pour great booze, just sayin'. (That's a whole other story, one for later this week or next.)

So, babbling about all this calmed me down and got me back to where dinner was a possibility. (First time doing pork chops sous vide and omg, so freaking good!) Cookies to all of you who've made it this far! ♥ ♥ ♥

Helllooooo, happy-almost-Halloween!

We did do the Food & Wine Festival at Epcot last weekend, and ended up really doing 3 fairly full days in the parks + the drive to/from, so this whole week has been an insane exercise in trying to catch back up. Work is also crazy-busy and now my f-i-l is in the hospital with an infection from a nasty cut he got out on the farm. I am indulging myself with a long and rambling Disney post, cut for your skimming convenience.

( cutting for Disney planning contortions (non-food) )

( okay, *now* for the food! )

If you read all that, you're awesome. (Even if you didn't, I am, as always, available for WDW consults. ♥)

I haven't fallen off the edge of the world or anything, I'm just really behind on everything fannish and am trying desperately to avoid spoilers in multiple fandoms.

But! we're back from spring break and I have plans to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier this weekend, so that should alleviate some of the craziness. (I'm seriously not checking in anywhere, not even fb.)

Anyway. Disney World is still there and for the Disney-philes on my flist/circle, I will add that the new Festival of Fantasy parade at MK is fabulous (semi-decent pictures here and here on tumblr; having lunch with an Imagineer is pretty cool even before you add in good food at the Brown Derby; and Morgan Freeman now narrates the updated, actually-bearable Hall of Presidents presentation. No naps were taken! This trip turned into the restaurant tour, which you all know is not ever going to make me sad, so that was fun, too. (It's hard to top a window seat at the California Grill on a clear evening, but Be Our Guest gave it some good competition. I'll never eat at the Castle again. Also, the Kobe burger at Yak & Yeti is seriously awesome--yes, D orders burgers everywhere, but you knew this already. I think I have to give the lowest marks to Le Cellier, which was not bad, just didn't knock it out of the park food-wise and had nothing atmospheric going for it.)

Alsoalso, the third-party vacation club broker worked out perfectly, which let us snag a savannah view studio at Kidani Village for approximately the price of a moderate-resort room. Many thumbs up and I'll be happy to provide links if somebody is thinking about taking the plunge.

Actual fannish content to follow soon, promise!

Ciao, bellas!

We had 5 different dinner reservations but then we found a little bar tucked behind the bandstand at the Grand Floridian & we've been here since it opened. There are balloons waiting to be dropped at the appropriate time. Very exciting!

( we've been collecting the glowing ice cubes for days now )