Virtually Glad It's Monday

As hesitant as I am to bitch about a long work day to a medical student, Friday was a shrew of a hag of a chore, and I'm glad to be rid of it. I got to work at 9 and left after 7. It was all magazine work, and it reminded me too much of the bad ole alt-weekly days. A small teacher party was waiting for me back home, and I arrived before it broke up. I was informed they had beer, snacks, and ... '80s Trivial Pursuit? And would I like to play?? Pardon me while I lay waste to your homelands! I destroyed them. I went home with the afterglow of conquering.

I discovered the next day that only 90% of my gutter repairs worked. I recaulked the leak, and I think it will hold for now. We'll have to get new gutters next year, I'm pretty sure. I'm also concerned about the deck.

Sunday evening was spent coordinating Thanksgiving plans with Your Parents and My Mom. Your Mom is a little scattered about making plans for the girls. Things are still up in the air, but Your Sis and I aren't worried. We obviously know the town. We can offer options, something we can't do in Birmingham.

I managed to find the one copy of the Ultimate Blu-Ray edition of Watchmen (deleted scenes and tons of extras) at Best Buy. I hope to watch it when I we get five hours. I also set up the PS3 to stream NetFlix on our big TV. It's all so sci-fi. When we have you at the house, we'll plop you down in front of the TV. We have DVDs. We have video games. We'll spoil you a bit.

I met my senior kid this weekend, and I'm worried he's gonna blow this project. He has three weeks to draw, letter, and print a 32-page comic. Even I can't do that. I've warned him and related the meetings to his teacher. I fear he's gonna turn in something done at the last second. He has virtually no sketches, his rough script (unfinished) has no dialogue, and he hasn't thumbnailed a rough of the comic. It will take charity to get a passing grade.

Your Sis and I walked again in this very bizarre, warm evening air. It helped inspire notions for the school arts magazine for which I've been asked to submit an item. I'm gonna do a comic on running. I spent the weekend sketching a format I want to experiment with, and I've already chucked my first big idea (a collage of small drawings) for a straight-forward comic style, and I've got my first and last panels. I know what the comic will be about and roughly how many panels. I feel good. It's due Dec. 4. This is feasible. Unlike that the kid wants to do.

His teacher emailed me to say that I can't print and assemble the comic for him. He has to learn the skill set for the entire process. That means more work for him, less for me. I can live with that.

Picture of the Day
Invasion at the White House!

A Bit

I'm doing much better, and I credit everything Your Sis did and my cheap lunch of two bananas. Only 30 cents at the nearby Ingles. Your Sis has, not surprisingly, picked up a variation of the icky ick and only worked a half day. I tired to pamper her, but she did demand the panned dinner of fajitorittos. We've got it down to a precise formula of ingredient increments: six shells (wheat and corn), two peppers, one small onion, and a half-pound of [protein vehicle].

I've heard no more about the library signs since I sent the sketches. I passed along my cell phone number and wait to discuss the signs in detail. I was also asked to contribute an art piece for the school arts magazine. I still need specs for that. I'm thinking of doing a comic story about running.

We didn't get the magazine out yesterday, and now I'm swamped at work. Ta.

Noisy Picture of the Day
And now: Instant Chewbacca.

Slighty Ill Babble

If this is a flu, it's the mildest case I've ever had. The headache is gone this morning, and my face has that fuzziness usually associated with horrible congestion. Your Sister leapt into spouse-nurse mode and fixed me up with tomato soup and popcorn (try it). I took some vitamin cocktails and Vitamin C pills and ginger ale. DayQuil and NyQuil were employed. The sick bed was used. I know I slept heavy because I woke up in the same position I had laid down. For lunch yesterday, I bought bananas and wolfed them down. I think I'll be OK by the weekend. I wonder if my running hiatus helped this sneak in. I haven't run since the Halloween race.

+ + +

We watched half of a Russian vampire movie called Night Watch. It's disjointed in a way that suggests aggressive editing. Or it might be a Russian sensibility. It's stylish in what many used to call the "MTV style" back when MTV showed jump-cut videos. Now it's more likely to be called "video-game style" as it looks like the animated narrative scenes between playable parts of games.

This director went to to make Wanted last year, and I liked that film's energy. That guy and the one who made District 9 this year have enjoyed big-studio success. Combine them with Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth), and big-action films are no longer the territory of domestic film students. The action movie is truly going global.

Technically, it's going global again. John Woo was the master of low-budget Hong Kong action films, but his American productions are scattershot. China and Japan have cranked out some nice genre films in the past 20 years, mostly period films with samurai and wire-fu, and thank God for them because they indirectly gave us The Matrix. The director of those films, the Wachowskis, are clearly American kids who are influenced by movies from beyond our coasts, and that's why their films (V for Vendetta, Bound, Speed Racer) are distinctive and exciting. They have a new movie coming out this holiday season called Ninja Assassin. Looks dumb as rocks, but fun dumb.

Picture of the Day
From Big Picture: Miranda Galan (center) was one of 80 third grade children from the North School that made a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts Boston on a field trip from New Hampshire on October 30th, 2009. In the spirit of Halloween students got a surprise gift from MFA director Malcolm Rogers and Bob Gallery, Massachusetts President of Bank of America when they handed out Egyptian masks and toured the "Secrets of Tomb 10A" exhibit.

Working

Maybe I have the bug. You know, THE bug. Hamthrax. Maybe not. It's possible I have allergies from Gulf of Mexico gunk thrown our way by the hurricane.

Your Sis has the day off while I work. We're trying to get as much work done and mailed before Thanksgiving. We're still packaging convention coverage in print and online, and I'll be glad to have it our from over my head. No, I don't mind being at work today if it gets me closer to that.

Your Mom is bouncing between Your Sis and me for Thanksgiving arrangements, and we're telling her the same notions independently. There's no reason to contact any hotels when we live just an hour away. I do that commute practically in my sleep.

Picture of the Day
Observe and learn the chart everyone.

Mister Fix-It.

Because of a recent episode of This Old House, Your Sister was paranoid (her word) of the dryer causing a house fire. Some installations use a vinyl duct to connect the dryer to the outside vent. Lint can get stuck there, and if a gas dryer's intake line is to close to the outtake connection, the vinyl can melt, and the lint can catch fire. Our dryer has a pipe extension that goes under the house. I went to Lowe's for a new dryer duct and clamps. I also bought gutter sealant for the leaky gutters. Saturday morning, I went under the house and found the dryer's outtake is a solid pipe. We're safe there.

I got on the ladder and saw the gutters needed more than a sealant. They needed spackle. I'd rather replace that bad section, but the gutter spanning the back of the house seems to be all one piece. It would take three people just safely remove it before a replacement connection can be made. I took the dryer stuff back to the store and traded them for a hardcore spackle. I caulked the gutter with that and let it dry before sealing it the next day. We should get rain this week, and I'll see how it worked. I also gave the lawn what will likely be its last mow this year and mulched and bagged the leaves with it. Could be the last hurrah for our ancient mower, and it's served us well with its insatiable grass hunger.

As we ate at the soda shop on Saturday morning, Your Sister said, and I'm paraphrasing here slightly, "For the love of God, get me out of the house." And so I got her out of the house for the love of God. We window shopped. We browsed. We shared a Starbucks drink. We talked about Thanksgiving and students. The senior and I were to meet that afternoon, but he informed me that he hadn't done the homework I assigned him, and I told him to get it done for next week's rendezvous. Your Sis thinks I handled it right.

Meeting without that work in hand would be a waste of time, and this kid now has a month to write and draw and package a comic book among all the other assignments he'll receive. I want to help him, but he has to learn that you don't simply vomit through a pencil and make a comic. I told him this early on: It's a research paper that you draw. There are outlines and rough drafts. Plus, I argued, he ahs to show a progression of ideas and art to fill out his project portfolio. Without it, it doesn't matter that the finished comic looks like. Fail the portfolio, fail the project, fail senior year.

We walked along the county bike path Sunday enjoying, as you noted on FB, weird-ass November weather.

I've seen many references to the Wall coming down 20 years ago, and I can tell you exactly where I was when I found out: In my drama classroom, five days later. I missed the whole thing as we were on a drama trip to Columbia, and we didn't turn the TV on once. It wasn't mentioned in my house when I got back, and My Parents hated watching the national news as it was "always depressing." So, no, not until my drama teacher mentioned it Monday morning did I have a clue that the world has changed. And I made myself a promise that I would never be that clueless again.

Picture of the Day
I like to get all my opinions at the same time.

A Scoash

Mom has become more chummy with the newly widow neighbor. She gets to lead someone through the experience of the sudden loss and recovery. The widow had it rough, what being married to an utter bastard, and she has to discover a world without that looming shadow. But there's a danger of her clinging to the buoy instead of swimming. Mom's wary of being a crutch and already has plans to create some distance. She also related to me that one of her longtime friends considers me a nice young man. I reminded her that I'm almost 40 and maybe he confused me with a grocery bagger.

Your Sister has managed to stave off the swine flu (hamthrax), and I haven't heard of additional cases at the school.

I'm sending the library sign sketches to the school official today. I'm curious how many of them will make it through the process.

The NFL Bet
Her Teams (boo!)
AFC
New England (5-2)
Pittsburgh (5-2)

NFC
St. Louis (1-7)
New York Giants (5-3)

My Teams (yea!)
AFC
New England (5-2)
Pittsburgh (5-2)

NFC
Philadelphia (5-2)
Atlanta (4-3)

Picture of the Day
What a great idea, and what a wonderful perfume you've discovered.

Run and Play

I posted my race log on the Book of Face. The costume went over well and caused no race problems. The gloves no hang in my workshop near the lucha masks. After the race, we watched The Shining, the first movie we saw together, back when I was spoken for by someone else. The new DVD player and TV made it a whole new movie experience. We had two clusters of kids seeking candy, and we have lots of candy leftovers. Not that I'm complaining.

I went to the last day of the current play on Sunday. This was a show my liaison was keen on directed for years and had performed a few times in Florida. it was a late entry, I think, in the script consideration, and I was worried about it based on the theatre cliches: it's one set, set in the '50s, and features lots of drinking and "darling" dialogue. There needs to be a name for this kind of theatre. Parlor drama, maybe.

I've complained so much about the company that I want to take the opportunity to praise what they did right. Firs of all, they opened up the stage by eliminating the wing pieces. That adds eight feet of total space, and the stage is in widescreen now. The lighting gave it a warm tone, and the set included roof timbers, making the ceiling look huge. That stage has never looked better. The cast was good. Charming, especially the leads. This is the standard the other shows should aspire to. A good audience too. The theatre installed acoustic curtains in the back, and they work like gangbusters. I admit I felt those twinges of theatre competition. I shooed them away so I could watch these folks do their stuff. I made sure to congratulate the folks I knew after the show. I was asked to direct the summer mystery play, and I played coy.

Before the play, we composted the jack 0'lanterns. It was appropriately ghoulish to check these faces into the bin and stab them with a shovel repeatedly. The clock change helped me get up really early this morning, a habit I hope to keep until the clocks go forward again. I'm almost done with my first round of library sign sketches.

The senior was working a charity booth during the town festival, and I told him we'd meet next weekend. I heard Thanksgiving will be held at Your Parents' house this year, and you're welcome to stay with us while you're in town.

Picture of the Day
A Russian Soyuz capsule approaches the space station.

Race Eve

The weather looks sucktastic for the race. That might spook off the casual runners (oh hey, that's me) and leave the runners who demand to run in costume (oh hey, that's me too). If it's a thunderstorm, they'll have to postpone. I hope they don't hold it the next day; I'm going to the local play Sunday. I promised the director. Although, I might leave the play early for the race if need be, and look at me making plans for things that haven't happened yet.

Your Sister and I went to the school for a light workout. She feels horrendously out of shape and a failure, and I remind her she's run maybe two miles during the entire year. She can't compare herself to me at this stage. When she builds up her cardio and readies her knees, then we can be good-naturedly competitive. We ran some stadiums and jogged a bit. She's worried about winter weight. I would like to run in the mornings when the clocks change this weekend (reminder to all exam-crazed med students), but I'd still face school traffic. No thanks.

She's at home today for the second of her furlough days, and she's up to her eyes in paperwork. Granted, that's not that tall a stack, but the point remains. I'm supposed to meet the senior tomorrow, but the annual fall festival might put the kibosh on that. The library will either be closed to avoid constant bathroom requests or the parking lot will be commandeered by tourists. Also, a few hours after the scheduled rendezvous, the 5k race will take over the adjoining parking lots and the entire road for a half mile. During this, trick-or-treaters will start heading out. There's one leg of the race that goes right by the most popular candy-giving neighborhood in the county. That neighborhood already gets traffic rerouted around it. The police are presumably (hopefully) going to close off the usual detour road for the runners. This could be a mess.

I'm not worried. I have my costume, and I have my goal time of sub-28 minutes. That's all I care about. I won't get a trophy. I'd really love to be among the first 100 finishers. That's be nice.

Picture of the Day
Summer's really gone, I guess.

The WorldBrain Has Spoken.

I know nothing about iPod Touches, other than I lust for one in a gee-whiz haze of geekgasm. I do need a new cell phone, but we live in an area with un-good AT&T coverage. The iTouch would be an awkward iPod to run with too. Here are the answers I got yesterday:

• Geek Squad or Apple Store might be the most obvious options. She might be proper fucked as far as getting it repaired, though. Apple's stuff isn't known for being easily repairable.
  
  
• It really wouldn't hurt her to take it to the Apple Store. I know that I have had friends without the warranty left on it get a new one for a deal or even free.
  
  
• A later comment says: They don't fix iPod touches at the Apple Store. She can repurchase a refurbished one at a discount.
  
  
• Here is a link to Apple's support for the ipod touch: http://www.apple.com/support/ipodtouch/ Give tech support a call, they will open a case and advise what to do. If it's under warranty they'll provide shipping labels so you can send it free to have repaired / replaced. If it's not under warranty they'll give a quote on the repair cost.
  
  
• Apple probably won't even be willing to touch it if it's water damage. It can be repaired but based on past models, repair from water damage always leaves issues. It's not likely going to be as good as new.
  
  
• Try ifixit, I've done multiple ipod repairs using their instructions and parts. I'll warn you ahead of time iphones and ipod touches are specifically built so that they aren't easy to open. good luck.
  
  
• If it's within the 1 year warranty they may just give her a new one at an Apple store (a later comment says this: "not for water damage"). If not they'll probably try to sell her a new one, with a discount taken for the broken iPod.
  
  
• I suggest lying and not mentioning the water part. (a later comment says: "All ipods and most modern electronics have built in indicators for water exposure.")

Couldn't hurt to ask local Apple folks, if there are any. Best Buy has an Apple section these days, and that might be your best option. Also, they offer in-store warranties that might cover water damage if you have to buy a new one.

Your Parents called me Sunday to ask advice on HD TVs. Your Dad saw a flyer for a Panasonic with a free Blu-Ray player, and the price was too good to pass up. They supposedly bought it later that day, but I've heard no updates.

I ran last night for the last time before Saturday's race. I had a very good time. Your Sis wants to run tonight at the school, and I volunteered to chaperon. I wanted to buy old-fashioned tube socks for the boxer costume, but they apparently no longer exist. Also, you can only buy single pairs of tube socks for $10 each at sports stores, so no thank you, sir. I figured that my boxing gloves would make it difficult to operate my iPod during the run and will make me look like I'm repeatedly punching my appendix.

As the World Series began last night, the Yankee Stadium played the Imperial March for the visiting Phillies. The Yankees got the awards ceremony music flowing into the main theme for the ending credits. The game was broadcast by FOX, so I guess they have the music rights and the good sense to use that to lure in casual fans like me.

Picture of the Day
Bert sees all. Bert demands information. Bert will transmit the recorded data to his overlords on Muppetron IV. Bert is programmed to operate for 10,000 years, and he will outlive us all, and his final words will be "whither the pigeons [computebootundo] ?"


Well, that was more depressing that I intended.

My Disappointment Is Inexhaustible

I learned earlier this week that the previous theatre company has scheduled 12 shows between the current Halloween play and Christmas 2010. Twelve. No one does this. Not colleges, not amateur companies nor professionals. No one has the talent or money to do a decent production at a clip of one a month.

They also decided to drop Annie, the one show that would bring in guaranteed box office and a flood of young talent and new volunteers for future shows. When I was still meeting with committees, this would have been Spring, that was the show felt by theatre veterans that had to be announced ASAP to lure actresses and families away from their 2010 summer vacations. I didn't hear the reason why Annie was scrapped, but I can imagine: Who can fit 20 young girls on that small stage for a three-weekend run? Who wants to corral that mob for two months?

Among the reasons I stayed away from the current production was concern that chaos and drama would enter via the crew. No matter who was put onstage, I assumed the director would sit on any divas enough to make the show work. The crew, however, are often chosen without the director's input or he has to settle for whoever he can find at the last second. It appears my cynicism was founded: The director and the stage manager are at odds, and what a lovely distraction that must be for five actors working a three-act play. One has to wonder how the group manages to attract this quality of professionalism. It must be some sort of mountain magic that lures them to a locus of theatre calamity. We're Las Vegas in the community-theatre version of The Stand.

As my liaison leaves this fall, he removes my true obligation to the group. I recently turned down another nomination to join the board. I'm staying away. Even though the group is doing big-name shows this season -- Odd Couple, Mousetrap, Glass Menagerie -- the backstage whirlpool isn't worth hopping into a big play. Nor is it rewarding to surrender two months of time and brain work to perform before 50 people. Snobbish? Perhaps. Soul-crushing? Always. The building can hold four times that number. I believe the company could lure larger crowds if they cut back on the number of shows. Better posters, also. You can't draw in people off the street with clip art found online on letter-size paper carrying 200 words of information. When the posters are taped to shop windows and bulletin boards, they vanish amid the other flyers. I'm tired of presenting my sales pitch to make the posters. It's been two years.

The only good news is that college may allow its theatre students to work in the local theatre's prouction, ending the boycott. That will get new blood, but they need veterans to help them learn the craft, and all of us are running into the night.

So why do I despair about this so often, you may ask? Two reasons:

1) Everyone else I know in town is through Your Sister, and while she makes good friends, I'm dependent on her for a social network. That's a bind. The theater gave me a conduit to more people.

2) The theatre is so physically close to our house that, if I were to be involved, I'm pretty sure I would be the closest of any other theatre person to the building. That, combined with me knowing my stuff, would make me a major contributor to the company. That's appealing. So much so that I constantly question my judgment about previous theatre meltdowns. Was it really so bad? Couldn't I bow up and muddle through? Then I read some of the blog posts on those shows and think I wouldn't do that again if they paid me.

2b Bonus Reason Cheap At Twice the Price) No one gets paid. It's all volunteer. That means there's no incentive to do more than the bare minimum nor is there an attractor for the best skills. What do we get? An inordinate amount of dingbats and drama queens (which might just be the name of my new rock band) eclipsing the energetic cheerleaders and the eagerly competent.

Picture of the Day
Mars orbiter photos show dark sand whirls that scientists suspect are made by dust devils turning up the topsoil. This doesn't even look like a landscape. We've stared at Mars for hundreds of years with our state-of-the-art technologies, and we're still surprised by it.

I Am Just A Poor Boy And My Story's Seldom Told

I spent my lunch break standing in a Halloween store debating between two boxer costumes: the Everlast and the Rocky. The Rocky came with a short white robe, small gloves, and these shorts.
Except the shorts looked much cheaper, and "Rocky" replaced "Balboa." The other set, however, had larger gloves and longer shorts, and I worried they would drag me down in the Saturday race. I picked the latter set because I could be any boxer. In the first set, I would have to be Rocky, and I don't want to do a Stallone impression.

I did not wear it during my run last night. This was my first 5k run in the new shoes, and my mind would be on distracted enough by them, I thought. Nope. My feet were fine, and the thicker soles are a big temptation to bounce more in my run. It certainly helps when running downhill, which I now do at near full stride.

Your Sister and I decided to walk together after my runs, and we left the house near the same time last night. I took a different route to replace the last half mile I'd lose by meeting her at the school, where she was ran stadium steps and jogged the track. On the second half of my run, I saw a kid running in the direction of the school. Now this was just as the big downhill starts, and I figured he was either running Saturday's 5k route or heading to the school for the rescheduled JV game. He was delayed by a red light, and it still took him a half mile. But he was zooming at a pace I couldn't match. I watched him pull away ahead of me and was convinced he was a regular runner testing the 5k route. I again accepted my age and relative lack of training and picked up my stride a bit to think of other matters.

I could see him when he passed the road that makes up the majority of the 5k route and realized he was both headed to the school and slowing down. By the time I reached the school, I saw him shuffling forward at a dead walk with his hands on his head. He was beat, and I was still going, feeling solid in the third mile. Before I could pass him, he heard me and turned to watch me pass by, and I knew the dark night would hide my smile. Your Sister was right there to watch us both. She just finished her new workout, and we walked home to make pizza.

I modeled the costume after I added one of my boxing t-shirts. We gave each other rabbit punches with the gloves. I used to be a big boxing fan before the sport degraded into one-punch bums. Tyson affected a whole generation who thought a haymaker was all they needed to be rich. What they forget is that, early one, he was a very smart fighter who just happened to be a devastating puncher. His defense was perfect.

Picture of the Day
My 5k race costume. Very fit guy not included. I won't run in the robe, but the gloves and shorts shouldn't be a problem during the race. They're light. I still need to buy tube socks though.

We Stab It With Our Steely Knives ...

Swine flue is officially at the school, and all is calm. The sick are staying home. My Mom says the Spartanburg hospital has banned visitors except in dire emergencies and absolutely no kids. I always knew kids were trouble, and now the medical system backs me up. We decided to skip the homecoming game in the driving rain, and Your Sis feels she bolstered school spirit enough in the preceding days.

I had delivered a formal presentation at work to a national finance committee that day. It was my first such effort, and I prepared for days. I crushed it. I bestrode the meeting like a mighty colossus. Your Sis bought my bakery snacks and a 40 of Smirnoff Ice to celebrate. And, lo, did I gobble.

We got up early Saturday to prepare for the third annual pumpkin carving party. Groceries were bought and supplies stocked up. It's surprisingly difficult to find cords of firewood in this, the second half of October. I had to buy some gourmet wood packs from Lowe's. Your Sis began the cooking while I met with the senior for his project.

I'm disappointed that he isn't following up on my template of comic as research paper. Instead he's making finished pages despite not knowing what his story will entail or how long it will be. I showed him my thumbnails and script and sketches for a few of my comic projects to reiterate the need for the process. The kid allegedly is a writer, and I thought he'd latch onto the possibility of writing in layers, first with plot and then with dialogue. But he's the kind of kid who wants to go with his first notions, even if they're incomplete.

I pulled rank and assigned him homework: Give me a thumbnail outline of the comic's full story (knowing it can be adjusted) by next weekend. If he doesn't, I'll give him the same homework each week until he does. This is how comics are made. If he intends to treat comic production as the other legitimate guild skills his fellow seniors are learning, he has to respect the formal process. I admitted it sounds like I'm intentionally squelching the fun of creation, but I assured him a scaffolding of narrative will be his bestest friend come December when he's scrambling to finish this.

I talked to a few of his teachers at the carving party, and they shared similar stories. I remember being the same way in school. I thought the burst of creativity was better than planning, editing, and incremental production. You know, work. And work sucked for my lazy bones what wanted to doodle.

The party folk arrived at 5:30, and suddenly the house was filled. We had people in the library and the TV room and on the deck. I put the AMC Alien marathon on TV and asked each parent if they were OK with it around their kids. Only one blanched and that was much too late to keep her kid from seeing blood and goo. He thought it was, and I quote, awwwwwwwwwesome. We provided carving kits and drinks. People brought their pumpkins and communal snacks. Your Sis bought a growler of local beer for me to enjoy and share, and it was simply OK.

The party went well, and the firepit kept us from freezing as we reached deep into the bowels of the gourds for their sweet seed brains. The party ended at 9, but it felt much later, and all were of the mind that we do this every year. And so we shall.

Sunday, then, was our laze-about day, but we took advantage of the clear skies to carve the final pumpkins that afternoon. I plugged the iPod into cheapo exterior speakers, and we listened to Dan Savage podcasts. We're planning some joint exercise outlines to ward off the winter weight, and I need to decide on my race costume nowish. She roasted seeds in two spice combinations, and they were so good, even I couldn't give pass them up.

Picture of the Day
This is a costume for sale in Target. I don't think that word means what they think it means.

Win if You Can, Lose if You Must, But Always Cheat.

Your Sister received a late email informing her the dodgeball team would be made up of teachers and named the Pugnacious Pedants. When the tournament began, however, a typo rendered them the Pugnacious Pendants. They still got to use Hot for Teacher as an entrance theme. This is the second tournament for the high school art guild, and it remains a huge success. At least a dozen teams played in double elimination for two hours, and her team made it pretty deep.

There was an instance when she ran to the other team's side of the court (a gross violation) and she removed herself from that bout. But apparently she terrified the other team into paralysis, and they lost easily. I didn't get out of work early enough to see this, but I am not shocked. Of course she wandered onto their side; she also hogs the mattress in a spousal manifest destiny. I ascribed her action to watching too much pro wrestling with its many catchphrases in praise of cheating. So is this my fault? I can't believe that. I'm a paragon of virtue, and I've marinated in the junk for decades.

The winning team (the AK47s) won the school's version of the Stanley Cup, a giant gold hand clutching a dodgeball. It's the final day of the homecoming week, and today's theme is "extreme blue and white." She wore her devil horns to school. She's adorable.

We discovered a local bar now serves gyros, and I may have a new favorite watering hole. I'm a gyro whore, and I am not ashamed.

I still need a costume for next week's race, and I hope to check the local stores for a lightweight skeleton mask and costume.

Picture of the Day
Stevie Stevie Stevie.

Wary and War and World

It's been busy.

It's homecoming week at the high school, and the staff are encouraged to join in the daily costume themes. So far, it's been superheroes, sports, and a day when groups of teachers dressed alike. Decreed frivolity becomes a chore before long. I offered her coworkers my comic shirts to wear that day and had no takers. That day always makes clear to me how much geek clothing I have. Yikes and yikes some more.

We're surrounded by the flu bug. Or pale imitators that spook everybody. One school lost 100 kids to sick beds, and the absences at Your Sister's school are noticeable. We have simple symptoms, but we attribute it to the seasonal swings in temperature and moving through structures with newly cranked heating. We're careful, and she's most susceptible as all bedraggled teachers are.

She might be even more so tonight: She's been drafted to play on the faculty dodgeball team.

We rendezvoused in Asheville last night to see a double-bill of radio plays performed onstage. We've seen the tours from the LA Theatre Works before. They mounted a show based on transcripts of a trial regarding the publication of Pentagon material on Vietnam and a show based on transcripts of the Scopes monkey trial. This year, they're doing adaptations of Lost World by Doyle and recreating Orson Welles's War of the Worlds. I've wanted to see the latter onstage for decades, and they delivered a show worth the wait.

It's a short script as the radio show was an hour long, and the people who believed the play was real way back when had to be irregular listeners to the Mercury Radio Theatre at best. Orson Welles voice is clearly identifiable, and he's all over the original broadcast. The majority of those tuning in had to have said "oh yeah, that's Orson Welles playing an astronomer." But the theatre tour set the stage (literally) by playing clips of Hitler beforehand to remind us that fears of war were heightened already, one year before Germany took Poland three full years before Pearl Harbor.

The Lost World was played broadly for simple laughs, and we kinda smirked through most of it. There was audience participation cued by signs and gestures. The group held a QnA session after. I noticed a few scripts had different colors of highlighter blocks and asked if they had a communal code. Nope, they said, it's up to the actor. One actor pointed out that he uses different blocks of color to separate the paragraphs.

I felt that pull, that magnetic allure of the stage calling me up, and I remind myself I won't go back just for that radioactive pile of frustration to beat me down again. I had another dose of it this week when the group president put me in a mass email saying I was a candidate for theatre board member. I succinctly told them I can't commit at this time. I would have preferred he verify his hope with me before announcing it to the entire theatre group.

Oh, and our usher last night was a fellow actor from the courtroom show. Small world. She hosted the wrap-up party. She keeps a very kosher house -- my first exposure to it -- and the food was fantastic.

As we always do, Your Sister and I hit a convenience store for candy to keep us awake as we drove home. She got mint 3 Musketeers because she has crazybrains.

Picture of the Day
Here's the group doing The Lost World. The actors are using scripts to pantomime paddling up the Amazon. Man, I wish I could have talked the local company to do a show this way.

Addenda

I forgot to mention two items of conspicuous consumption.

Saturday afternoon, after I prattled at the senior for an hour, I bought new running shoes. I think my original pair are three years old. The soles are starting to peel, a good barometer of when to get new shoes. I think. Maybe. With the Halloween race coming up, I thought I should get a new pair now and break them in. The local sports store owner knew exactly what I was looking for, and found me a pair that fit within seconds. They felt marvelous. Like they were molded for my feet, and I could tell only then just how flat my first shoes had gotten. I wore them all day, and they felt like slippers. I hope to run in them tonight. I'm leaning toward a skeleton costume for the race. I have the gloves from the Scrooge play to wear.

On Sunday, we bought pumpkins from a church. They had a small patch in front of their big steeple room, and we grabbed three. The biggest is for Your Sister, and I predict she'll need a half hour just to scoop out the brains. We're hosting a party on Saturday, and I picked up more cutting kits and decorations last night. I can find no Krackel, my favorite candy bar, and I take it personally.

The NFL Bet
Her Teams (boo!)
AFC
New England (4-2)
Pittsburgh (3-2)

NFC
St. Louis (0-6)
New York Giants (5-1)

My Teams (yea!)
AFC
New England (4-2)
Pittsburgh (4-2)

NFC
Philadelphia (3-2)
Atlanta (4-1)

Moving Picture of the Day
It wasn't, but it should've.

Finally We Meet

Preparing for this weekend's college presentation took up all of Friday evening for Your Sister. We went back to the school around 11 to dot the i's. She left early Saturday with a local college professor to travel halfway to Virginia to talk about senior projects. I saw her off after loading her CDs into the car stereo for her. I got a haircut and more silver gray was revealed (to her delight). I was to meet my mentored senior for the first time at 12:30, and I intended to kill time at my computer after visiting the barbershop. I had my iPod on and it hit a good sequence of music. It got me antsy. So antsy, that I was soon slipping on my still-wet cold-running shirt and darting outside for a 3-mile run. It was very cold, and I was very brainless. But I ran well and burned the antsiness away.

I got back in time to clean up and grab a snack before driving to the library to meet him. I packed along a pile of minicomics, some standard comics, my sketchbook, the camera, and a handful of letter paper. He arrived about ten minutes after I did, and we sat inside.

First of all, he's not a comics fan. His buddy is, and it was the latter's notion that this kid make a comic out of their shared love of zombies. This would not be so much of an obstacle had he arranged a rendezvous last month when the emails began. We've lost a month, and now we need to scramble. I told him to read the minis to consider page dimensions and story length and cautioned him not to ape a particular style. I showed him how he could fold letter paper repeatedly until it was the size comic he wanted to make and to use a stack of these to make a comic outline.

I saw his sketches and they'll work for the kind of story he's telling. But he needs to show the teachers and judges that he can make a decent comic package. That's the kind of skill these projects are to foster. I told, him, however, that we'll worry about that once he gets a story down on paper. I showed him where the library shelves their comics and found him some good examples to take home (a how-to book and Persepolis). I also handed him a Hellboy comic and told him to look at the tone and techniques.

This may not be as polished as I hoped. I assumed he knew something about comics. He doesn't. But I think I can steer him to a passable illustrated story in a bound folio that will look good. That should get him a passing grade. The meeting lasted only an hour (and that was me talking for practically the entire hour), and I was back home sketching out more genre signs for the library. I need to talk to that contact too about specifics.

Your Sis got back in town around 5:30. We zoomed to the pub to chow down and trade day notes. She sweated over that presentation for two weeks, stayed up much later than normal, and ate little. All for one audience member. She only had one person in the seminar. She's glad to have this thing in hand for the next time, but she's chagrined.

She slept most of Sunday. She couldn't get the gas stove to work Friday night, and I took a shot at it after we got groceries. We were worried I'd have to get a technician to look at it; the instructions are clear that any procedural hiccup should stop the cranking process before the house blows up. I got it to to work, however, and she slept in that room for hours. I did laundry and read and drew and stayed inside to avoid the cold. We made pizza and added reindeer sausage Your Parents brought from Alaska. 'Twas good.

Picture of the Day
The exclusion of Count Blah is inexcusable.

Cold Adjustments

As I drove home I watched the car's external thermometer display a lower and lower temperature. It was reading 53 degrees as I pulled into the driveway, making me question my notion to run again. It's only supposed to get colder this weekend, I realized, and I donned my wetsuit-tight cold shirt and headed out. Oddly, running at a more relaxed pace gave me a shorter overall time. The math of running is ever beyond me. Maybe the tight shirt gave me better posture. Maybe it restrained my breathing and prevented the aches from developing. I dunno. It was my best time since July, and I'm hoping to crack the 28-minute mark before the race.

It was cold enough that we turned on the heat for the first time. When it came on early this morning -- 5:30 -- the bedroom was filled with a low whine-moan akin to a distant fire alarm. I heard and dismissed it, but the drone kept me awake. It was just the right frequency to keep my shoulders tight. I got up to check it. I thought initially that the furnace was damaged, but I remembered that the bedroom vent can be noisy if it's not open all the way. I checked and fiddled, and it wasn't that. The sound was louder at the window, and I wondered if the sound was coming from a house behind ours. But no. The window wasn't closed fully, and the air pressure was causing the noise. Window closed, sound gone. Back to bed I went. Your Sister stayed up because she's daffy.

She leaves for a daylong teacher conference tomorrow, and the local are aflutter because there might be snow. I have my doubts. I hope to do more library sketches this weekend, but I don't want to lock in to particular imagery. I still don't know the sign dimensions, and the librarian and I need to confab about school concerns. Like, can a Western genre picture have a gun in it? If not, what do I draw that plainly says "Western?"

Picture of the Day
This was the contraption that helped me start drawing on my own. The girls' version was called Fashion Plates. Oh, I adored this thing for years and years. The plastic pieces smelled great too.

Blueprints and Results.

The cabinet guy came over this morning, and it was the older of the two guys who installed the drawers Monday. The same guy to whom I had first said the drawers were going in the wrong columns. He measured the exterior columns and didn't want to look at our schematic, saying they had it at the store. He offered to install exterior drawers (implying they would be free) and leave the incorrect drawers where they are. I hadn't considered that possibility; I was worried they'd have to tear down the whole thing and start from scratch. Your Sister didn't like that idea. I agree, but I saw that as one of two extremes: either raze and redo or give us a small refund. He offered a new option. We're content with that.

He didn't offer much in the way of an explanation or apology. I did not want the man to grovel, you understand, but something to explain why this happened would have been nice. As he left, he chuckled and said "but you know ... it's just cabinets." It took much strength to not reply "and thousands and thousands of dollars." Which it was. We splurged more than we should have.

We think we handled this well. We think we've been patient. We have not been shrill. When they install the new drawers early next week (we hope), that visit will be their third repair visit since they first assembled the shelves. Hopefully it will be the last. But we are not using this company again for any of the planned house projects we have in mind.

I called Your Sis and told here how it went down, and we agreed this particular guy is, in her words, "an odd duck." She never talks that way about people, so I feel more than justified in my own discomfort in how this all shook out. They're doing the right thing but not in the right way.

I made a salmon casserole last night, and I don't know what I was thinking. I kinda like salmon, but I don't like peas, and I'm not hot on milk. These are the major elements of the dish. What was I thinking? It never smelled good to me, yet Your Sis went crazy for it as she walked in from work. The cats I had to lock up to keep them out from under my feet, and I almost did the same to her. I cooked it and served it and realized I was in trouble. We sat down to eat -- finally, after a long day for us both -- and just as I was putting the spoonful of salmon, macaroni, and peas into my wary mouth, the phone rang. My mom's neighbor had committed suicide.

I had known this man all my life and, for all my life, he was a right bastard. He was proud to be dumb, slovenly, and chippy. He didn't like me either. I was a smartypants from birth, and all our conversations ended with tension. How he made it to be a state trooper says a lot about South Carolina's men in gray. Since he retired, he physically broke down with obesity and bad diets. He allegedly had legs black from poor circulation, and he was weary of dialysis. He went into his backyard, on the opposite side of the fence from my parents' bedroom wall, and shot himself in the chest. Mom was bubbly from having something new to talk about. I don't think she took a breath for the half-hour in which she recited all the conversations she's had about the matter since it happened Tuesday night.

When I got off the phone I was so angered from my memories of this man and the way he treated his family and Mom's giddy gossiping that what little appetite I had for the casserole had evaporated. I slid my bowl over to Your Sis and microwaved some tomato soup.

It's the middle of Ocotober, and I still have not laid eyes on the kid I'm supposed to mentor for his senior project. He's way behind on this effort to make a comic book by the end of the semester. I've talked to his teacher (a good acquaintance), and she's now officially worried about his chances. I don't know if he can even draw a triangle.

I'm having weird water dreams where my backyard is flooded and stocked with sea creatures. Last night I dreamed I was fishing for decaying trout, and I threw at least one of them into the eager mouth of a walrus sitting next to me. I blame the casserole combined with the constant rain.

Picture of the Day
This is the schematic of the next project I want to build. And use. Upon an unsuspecting populace of no-good-niks.

Slow Moving Forward

I just got off the phone with the cabinet business and explained they installed the sliding drawers on the wrong columns. The owner wasn't thrilled and asked simply "is their placement important?" Yep, I said. The gas stove can melt the carpenter's glue holding them together, and it's not what we asked for. He said they can come by tomorrow to remeasure the shelves (the columns are different widths), and they can install them properly when those shelves arrive at their store. I think he handled it right, so far, and I hope we can get this fixed with a minimum of sawdust.

Your Sister worked from about 4 to just before midnight. She has a teacher presentation on Saturday, and she's working with a PowerPoint knockoff. It doesn't work the same, and she had to adjust to it for virtually every step. The school switched from Microsoft Office to Open Office, and the programs are fully compatible. I kept her fed at her desk and stayed out of her way. She was pooped but content with what she created.

I ran, and I seem to have plateaued on my time. I need new shoes, true, but I think I'm also doing too much pre-run exercise, leaving me with a low tank before I even get out the door. I'm shifting my stride based on the grade of the hills. When my lungs are OK, my legs are sluggish When my legs are OK, my ribs ache. This didn't happen when I ran in the mornings.

Picture of the Day
Whenever I post a Star Wars image I found online, I think "well, surely that's the last one I'll ever find." But no. There's always more.

Here Is My Money. Do As I Ask.

When the cabinet people were installing the sliding drawers, I commented that they were measuring the wrong set of shelves. No, no, they explained. The sliders have to go on the interior shelves because the exterior shelves have a bigger upper sill. Oh, I said, but I could have sworn we wanted the drawers on the exteriors. I didn't have the design drawing on hand, and I let them finish their work. I told Your Sis about it when she got home, and she too could have sworn we asked for exterior shelf drawers. She found the drawing, and there it is: exteriors sliding drawers.

Looks like I have to be Mad Customer this weekend. As they will not be allowed to work while no one is home, we'll have to set up yet another time when they can fix it while one of us is home. Or they can give us back a chunk of money. I prefer the former. What I truly prefer is that they come out on Saturday and fix it. They don't prefer Saturday work, but maybe they prefer getting a job done right.

The sports shoe store was closed for the holiday, so no new running shoes for me. When I went price comparing in Sears for lawnmowers, I noticed how small the store was. It's about half the size of our house, and it only sells appliances and lawn equipment. There were three employees, and they were all working with one costumer buying a washing machine. They said nothing to me. I was there for ten minutes, checking mower parts, reading instructions, and jotting down prices and specs. They didn't check on me once. Didn't even say hello. Out I went. I'll buy the mower from Lowe's instead.

That's three-for-three in inconvenient consumer experiences. Socialism is looking pretty good right now.

Picture of the Day
Man, I miss Lost.

Waiting and Hurting

The office closed early Friday, and I waited to hear from Your Sister. She declined my offer to accompany her to the doctor, and I sat at home. Her appointment was at 3:45. I was anxious and killed time with a video game because it's mindless stuff. When 5 rolled around, I was bouncing off the walls. Here it was more than an hour later, and I had heard nothing. Madness. I called her, expecting to hear a bad diagnosis and a touch of anger that I hadn't gone with her after all. Sure, she said no, but I imagined her sitting there, stunned by a bad diagnosis and alone. I was mad at myself and her and the doctors, and it was all imagined.

She was still in the waiting room when I finally called her. I offered to wait with her, and she again said no. We said goodbye, and I went back to the game to kill time and faceless bad guys, who now were everyone between Your Sis and the manila folder with the words "OK" stamped on it. She got in to see him about ten minutes later. It took two minutes to say she's fine. She called me and drove home, and we surprised each other by how worried we were. This, on top of a big week, wore her out, and she went to bed early.

On Saturday, she drove her motorcycle to Asheville for the scheduled tune-up. I drove behind her, and we shopped in town while they fixed her bike. To properly work on it, the garage had to cool the bike down, and that gave us extra time at the mall. We got some new clothes and considered Christmas gifts. She looked at games and puzzles for the library and got Halloween cards for the nieces. I almost bought a musical card with the Wicked Witch of the West. She drove the bike back home in the rain, and she's becoming a pro at all-weather riding. She's also getting me closer to getting my own bike license. She said I can borrow her helmet.

We watched Zodiac that night while we ate the fiery Thai food. The film is great, maybe my favorite David Fincher film, and I love madly Fight Club and Seven. It's long -- a chunky three hours -- but it's about smart people thinking out loud, and I'm a sucker for that.

We were suffering Sunday after the Thai food. My throat was shot, my stomach was burning. No es bueno all around. We ate soup and porous food all day.

I'm at home today babysitting the cabinet people as they finish (hopefully) the shelves. It already looks like they put the sliding drawers on the wrong shelves, and they're currently driving back to their shop because the air compressor doesn't work. These people haven't won me over, and they've stepped on the wrong foot since Day One. I'll be relieved when this is over.

Picture of the Day
It was the fourth annual Wonder Woman Day in New Jersey and New Jersey this weekend. The events raise money for domestic violence charities and many comic artists attend to sale sketches to raise funds. I still hold that WW is the most recognizable pop female icon. I bet more people can name her than the Mona Lisa.

Dropping Cah-Knowledge Like a Beastie Boy

I arrived at the college alumni house at six in time to see the students cart in the Japanese take-out. The tallest figure was the boss, himself a recent graduate, and the guy I talked to through a few emails. The students (and I am making such an effort to not type "kids") circled inside the Alumni House living room and gobbled the dinner. There was no formal introduction, and they chatted about classes and their varying sports clubs and dorm life.

With the food mostly gone and the time to get to work approaching, the boss huddled them up. These were the kids (there it is) who were hired to call alumni for donations, and this was why I was here. I did this as a student, and we were the first class to be paid. We were told at the time that the paycheck was a leash; if we slacked off, we could be fired, something that can't be done with volunteers. The boss used that tip to remind the students that earlier folks didn't get paid.

He had a poster list of tips for them to use in the sales pitch, including some material I didn't know. The college's decision to resurrect the football team was controversial, but it gave entree to the NCAA, and that allows the other teams to compete on that level. I wasn't aware, and I told them that bit of info in a cold call would have gotten my money. I suggested they incorporate homecoming conversation into the calls. Before they got to work, they asked questions about my student days. Were we required to attend chapel? Where were the parties held? What's changed the most? Then they headed to the phones.

Their boss and I talked up shared acquaintances and college activities. He gave me a tour of the house and showed me the call center. I handed him my check; it was twice what I had pledged, but the experience was worth it. And they fed me Japanese take-out. Win-win.

Your Sister's follow-up appointment is today, and my office is closing early for the holiday. I've offered to go with her, but she's dismissed it. She's not concerned. Outwardly, anyway.

Picture of the Day
One of the Mars rovers discovered a meteorite recently. Those rovers are working years and years past their expected work life.

Scrambling

See, the plan was that I would come home, run, and prepare dinner. Earlier in the week, as we always do, we planned out our menus before buying groceries and so we didn't coincidentally make the same dish. I was going to make leftovers this week. Monday was the spaghetti, and yesterday was to be the lamb and cabbage soup. It's been in the freezer since last week.

I forgot to take it out to thaw. I didn't remember until before the run. I came back, and an hour was not enough to get it started. Seven minutes on "defrost" in the microwave wasn't enough. I realized my cunning plan had fallen through. Your Sister had just gotten home.

Me: Um, yeah, this isn't happening. Sorry.
Her: Oh, how many times have I had to take you out because I forgot to thaw dinner?
Me: Yeah, I s'pose. Alright, let me fetch my pants.

No one can pitch a romantic dinner like me, buddy. The dinner was fine, and we got cheaply tipsy on one glass of alky-hall each.

My run was a chore. I tried a shorter stride, and it durn near killed me. I think my lunch was too heavy. It was a real struggle once I hit the two-mile mark, but I did finish two seconds quicker than Monday's time.

I finally got my list of genres for the library project, and I can begin sketching. The senior making a comic for his independent project seems to have zoned out. It's his responsibility to contact me and bring me into his project, and I just sit back and wait.

I got an email from the leader of the script committee about a theatre schedule conflict. We planned the new theater season last month, and it included The Odd Couple. Unfortunately, very recently, a smaller group in a local gated community announced they're doing the female version of Odd Couple at roughly the same time. That community constitutes a sizable chunk of our theater's audience, and there's worry that the conflicting shows will cost us at the box office. The plan is to move our production to the summer. I have an idea that's seems so obvious and simple that it's sure to become an impractical, complicated fiasco: Combine the two shows.

In Odd Couple (both versions), the two leads set up a date with neighbors upstairs. In the male version, this is with the Pigeon Sisters. In the female version, it's the Spanish brothers. Why not have the leads of one production play the dates in another? The two groups can collectively market and package the shows as a community theatre experience and offer discounts for people who commit to seeing both shows. If they're really adventurous, they can ask two distinct restaurants to provide a meal-combo for the dates of the show, and the restaurants (say a Mexican and the low-country seafood joints) can be referred to as an odd couple themselves. The motto of the whole thing can be something like "see what happens when the roles are reversed."

If this were, say, my Greenville theatre and one of the smaller companies, I'd suggest it and push for it. Here? I suspect diva behavior would scuttle it.

Picture of the Day
Berlin celebrated the destruction of the wall and the reunification of the two Germanies (20 years ago, omigod) with an art project. Two giant marionettes paraded around the city in a narrative of a reunion. You can see the whole project here.

Plans

Can any day truly be bad if it ends with sudden-death playoff baseball, beer, and pub food? I say no.

Your Sister worked late -- like LATE late, not just late -- and I rewarded her toil with a bar dinner. She embraced the cider like a treasured heirloom recovered from a shipwreck. She earlier had another in the seemingly dozen organizational meetings. This one is led by a teacher new to the boss position, and Your Sister is playing the part of manager. She helped him prep and seemed as proud of his success as he was relieved to have it done. I was at home finishing today's FB drawing. More plans were made for Thursday's rendezvous with the college callers.

I'm scanning store shelves for new Halloween decorations, and I'm debating buying a fog machine or making one to work with the dry ice sold at the grocery store. I've operated a larger version of dry-ice machines in larger theaters; it's one of the perks of backstage work. Although you have to take care not to smother the actors with smoke. That happened during Glass Menagerie. But we only get a dozen kids each year. Is the effort worth it? Would a fog machine and new decorations lure new children into our delicious tiger traps? One must ponder.

I signed up for the Halloween race. I'm officially official.

How's your car?

Picture of the Day
Just saying.

Running on Fumes

I realize my diet is slight. Unhealthy, perhaps. But it works for me.

I eat two granola bars for breakfast around 8:30. This is during my commute now as the boss doesn't want us to eat at our desks anymore. She's afraid crumbs = germs = Swine Flu. The edict also means I lose my lunch habit of scarfing down a sandwich at my computer and using my full lunch hour to drive around town and rest my eyes. Now I take my lunch hour around noon and grab a Starbucks drink (something thick) and a hand-sized bread snack. Sometimes a muffin, sometimes a croissant. I nurse the drink for the rest of the workday. That tides me over until I get home.

On days like yesterday, I'll open the door, drop everything, change, stretch, and run. Maybe this flimsy diet is working; I stormed through my 5k route. That's seven minutes better than my first 5k run. I'd like to cut that by another three minutes before the Halloween race. That would be only ten minutes off the times of the local college athletes.

It was an odd start. I was beat up from the floor exercises, and my initial pace was quicker than usual. I managed to stay at that pace for the rest of the route, surprisingly. The local indoor climbing-wall business is holding a kids' health camp, and they're now on my route, doing short laps in the parking lot and ground exercises as I run past. I like to think my running catches their eye and nudges them to try it.

Maybe the increase in runners will encourage the dog walkers to handle their mutts differently. Come on, people. Put both leashes on one hand. Stop sprawling. Just yesterday, I had to run into the road because two walkers, side by side, heard me behind them, stopped cold, turned, and stared at me as I ran toward them. They made no effort to share the path. Does cold make people stupid?

Your Sister worked late, and I thawed out the Spaghetti Bucket. A sauce from veggie trimmings actually gets better after it freezes. I think the slow evaporation of water reduces it to the core taste components. Either way, we wolfed it down last night when she got home. Dinner is now my one true meal each day. There haven't been any negative effects as I've noticed. I'm thinner, yes, but toned from the running, and I've got my normal Daffy Duck energy.

Yesterday, during my lunch hour, I strolled through Lowe's for repair ideas. I think I figured out how to fix our gutter leaks and which new lawnmower I'll get. I compared prices for ladders, and I had no idea height was so expensive.

Picture of the Day
Communist China's air force celebrates the country's 60th anniversary.

Gutter Sniping

Your Sister had a meet-up with another teacher to hammer out a committee document, and I knew that would leave me alone for most of Saturday afternoon. I laundered and sketched and rearranged the workshop mess, but I really had a hankering to look at the gutters. They've hung over my head, both literally and metaphorically, and the weather was just nice enough to get me outside on a ladder.

I suspected they needed cleaning only on the corners at the downspouts. The previous owners installed both gutter covers and downspout filters. The filters are little green wedges that keep big items from clogging them. The covers are cheap plastic lattice tops. They also keep the chunky stuff out. Our gutters, however, attract and retain residue from the roof, mostly shingle grit, and I feared the summer rains had topped off the gutters with a stew.

They had. What I had hoped would be a half hour turned into two solid hours of scooping. It was a sludge an inch deep all around the house frame. It required me to pop the covers, claw out the slop, fling it into a bucket, and repeat about two dozen times. I could use this stuff as mortar. The joys of home ownership and maintenance. I want new covers on the cutters very soon. Something solid and sturdy.

Saturday night, I flipped around channels and found a Sherlock Holmes mystery on PBS. We watched, mildly curious, and then I realized we wear watching a PBS mystery on a Saturday night. This is an old-person activity. It gave me the mortal willies. Luckily, the show was weak enough to discourage us from going back to it on any night.

Your Sister wanted to watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit the next night. This is a film I reluctantly know by heart. It played on our wall of TVs when I worked at Wal-Mart. I can quote the film. She had never seen it, and I was curious how it held up. This was a film that squeaked in before CGI took off. James Cameron was noodling with it on The Abyss and Terminator 2, and I don't think either had been released yet. It was around before, but not on such a scale that this film could take advantage. The art doesn't really hold up. The story is slight, and the dialogue becomes a thin frame to move the plot along. It's technically impressive to watch the real props move as if the cartoons are affecting them and try to guess how they did that is more fun than following the story. Your Sister bailed about halfway through, and I was relieved to turn the channel.

Earlier on Sunday, I got a call from Brevard College asking for money. I recognized it as a student effort as I was in the exact same position about 20 years ago. I was a paid cold-caller. We exchanged notes (she was conversational, a good public persona for the fundraiser), and she asked if I'd come in and talk to them with tips as I've been on both ends of the phone line. I agreed to meet up with them on Thursday. There's not much I can say other than tell the school that $100 minimum pledges are impractical for those of us not living in a gated community. I did find out the school no longer requires community service for graduation. Baffling. The school needs to do more -- anything -- to reach out to the town. They never host a table at the local street fairs. They don't host the Halloween run anymore. They need to branch out.

I started a new drawing for FB, and it should be online before Wednesday. It's of Your Sister, captured in the fleeting nanoseconds betwen naps.

Picture of the Day
I woke up with the House theme in my brain this morning. Luckily, I had it downloaded on my iPod so I could drive it away by playing it once and only once.

Cold Running

I'm running my 5ks again. It's darker and colder, but the only effect is with breathing. The cold air makes me think I'm running harder than I am. I'm feeling it in my legs as I run every other day again, and I'm reminding myself to keep my chin up; that seems to stave off the rib pains. I turned in the exact same time yesterday as I did Tuesday, and I blame the football traffic. I had to run around a truck stopped at an intersection, and a car tailed so closely behind my on the last road that I ran into a lawn to keep from being run over.

It's a runners' town. People like me are all over the place, and I suspect some drivers don't know what to do with us. I admit I don't run with traffic. I don't trust the drivers. I'm off the sidewalks only briefly, and it's on a stretch of road wide enough to accommodate two cars, me, and a bicyclist. I'm always tempted to yell "cheater" at the bikers when they whiz by.

Your Sister drove her motorcycle to work a few days this week, and the kids who see her in her gear enjoy it. It became cold literally overnight, and we've made our biannual rearrangement of the bedroom. I get too cold, and she gets too warm; she moves closer to the window, and I move closer to the closet. I hear you now: Don't y'all have gas heat? Yes. Yes, we do. And I hope to convince Your Sister to turn it on before January. I mean, it's cold, but not cold cold. We have lots of blankets. We look forward to cranking up the new gas stove in the library.

Mom has worked a full week and feels OK. She wants a smaller weed-eater. We bought her one a few months back, but it's too big for her. I should have considered that; her yard is bigger than ours, and I picked out the same machine I use. She has some achy mornings, but she's off the pain medicine so she can drive.

Picture of the Day
We need a set of these.

The Wind in the Trees

Your Sister is taking advantage of the great riding weather to zoom her motorcycle all over the county. She armors up to ride the eighth-mile to work. She takes the long way home. It's fall in the mountains, and the leaves have agreed to parachute down in waves and skitter along the road just as you drive by them. We finally have sunlight, and it's properly cold at night. We've smothered the bed in blankets, and we're eating hot soups for dinner. I made a fish dish last night on a long-tended whim and posted the recipe on FaceBook. It was good-esque. Your Sister wants to go to bed earlier and earlier as her hibernation instinct kicks in.

Our NFL Bet
Her Teams (boo!)
AFC
New England (2-1)
Pittsburgh (1-2)

NFC
St. Louis (0-3)
New York Giants (3-0)

My Teams (yea!)
AFC
New England (2-1)
Pittsburgh (1-2)

NFC
Philadelphia (2-1)
Atlanta (2-1)

The garden is on its last legs. The tomato vines are dead, and the remaining tomatoes are clinging to a stick. I hope they redden before the bugs get them. The peppers are tiny and few, and the corn is a write-off. I don't think I'll try corn again next year. We're thinking of sweet potatoes.

Picture of the Day
Satellite photo of Kansas crops. They're circular because of the irrigation system.

And That's That.

Check FaceBook to see Your Sister and I eating the snacks from Snazziland.

+ + +

I finally had the phone call with my theatre liaison. He emailed me this weekend to pitch me again on stage managing his show; this follows weeks of phone calls making the same pitch with the disclaimer that I should talk to him when Mom was stable. She is and I did. Some small talk about the show led to me telling him my heart wasn't in it, and I could only promise a half-ass effort. I am unreliable for this, and he needs to find someone to depend on.

Now this stage manager business is required by a theatre tradition of a director releasing the reins when a show opens. I can understand this for professional open-ended shows. When you don't know when a show might close, a director can't commit to being there every night to make the show run cleanly. I guess. I mean, the paid actors and crew have contracts that stipulate they have to be there. The director would have begun his work earlier in the production. Stage managing also allows an apprenticeship of sorts for those who might later direct a show. But they may just as likely shift into a specific tech job.

Also, sure, a stage manager can run the show as the director talks turkey to tech folks. Again, a big-time show will require his attention in all areas. He can work backstage while an assistant cracks the whip.

A stage manager isn't so necessary for a community theatre production with a definite close date. Particularly when that show might only run two weekends. When I directed the one-act (twice, it turned out), I didn't consider a stage manager. It seemed irresponsible to mold a show and then set it adrift while I stayed home with the TV. There was no reason to bring in someone else to mind the script or set the props or corral the actors. I was there. I knew where everything was to sit and move. Who needs a Scooter?

That wasn't my argument with this director. He operates under that tradition of managers sitting in for rehearsals, learning the show, and running it when the audiences arrive. It's not that I'm so philosophically opposed to being a stage manager for a three-act show. I've done it before, and nothing caught on fire. I simply want to be home for a while. I'm burned out from the one-act and the later anthology lasting from spring through summer. And I don't trust the theater's resources and decisions.

Case in point: The smallest part in this fall play was given to Marley from the Scrooge play. If I had to manage that guy for a whole month, well, he'd be dead in two weeks. His diva behavior is inexcusable, and he's already bristling at such strident demands such as "learn your lines." Unlike the Scrooge play, this time he's working with people who will have their material down cold. I'd like to hope this standard would inspire him. I doubt it, however, and would not be shocked to hear the director take over the role a week before the show opens.

Picture of the Day
I caught the last home bout of rollerderby this season on Saturday, and the Blue Ridge Rollergirls won, 155-67. Team members Mazel Tov Cocktail and Rigor Morticia were strong for the home team again. They're really good. The people in the front of the photo are sitting in the "suicide seats." A number of the girls slid into them during the night, and it looked painful. But some of the rollers were cute enough to make it worth it.