gypsygirl

Since I still haven't gotten back my knitting patterns book from Meredith, I've decided to start a project of my choice for Asa. I figure if I don't start it soon, I may as well give it to him for his high school graduation. So, I found this pattern for a stuffed elephant that looked really cute, and I decided to do that for now. I'll probably still do the other when/if I get the book back from her.

Cute, isn't he? I'm making two of them, one in a darkish blue-grey for Asa, and one in yellow for Jana, since I don't yet know what her baby will be. I'm about two thirds of the way through the first one and I only started Friday night, so it's knitting up really quickly. I'll post photos of my two versions when I get them finished (this photo is one of the ones on the pattern).

I did finish A Little Princess last weekend, but I didn't get around to finishing cataloguing until the end of the week. I decided to do a collection of Alarcón short stories for my next official project. Ans is proofing both that and P & P for me, because I was starting to run out of room on my laptop with all the audacity files for P & P that I'd been saving up. She can't understand a word of what I'm reading for the short stories, so she's reading along and just comparing sounds.

Life's been pretty busy since my last post (hence no posts since then).

So, first off, I started the new job. It's been fairly quiet for these first few weeks. The whole first week and part of the second all I did was read, because they'd ordered me a new computer (a nice, shiny new macbook!) and we were waiting for it to arrive. The rest of the second week I spent trying to install Windows and Linux on it (some of the things I'm going to be working with run on Mac, some on Windows and some on Linux, so I have to have all three OS's). Then I went on vacation for a week, but I did finally get the various operating systems running when I got back. Since then, they've slowly been getting me started on some of the things I'm going to be dealing with. Oh, and kind of cool coincidence, one of the first things I worked on was a problem a professor was having with his website, which he was running with wordpress... so this blog? Not just for fun! Actual work related learning experience gained from it!

Now back to the vacation. I went out to Mum's for ten days. This is the first time I'd been out there since she moved to Palmdale and Paul brought the family up, so I got to see the new house, and of course, all the family. The times at home were fairly quiet. The boys are sort of between activities right now, so they spend most of their time online or playing video games (sometimes both). Mum and Natalie and I had fun though. Mum and I usually try to get out to the Hollywood Bowl whenever I visit during the summer, and this year Natalie came with us. We got to see South Pacific, with Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell. It was awesome! Then a few days later, we went to see Wicked. I'd been wanting to see this since I first found out that the book was being turned into a musical, so I did a quick search to see if the touring company might happen to be in the Los Angeles area during that week, and found that there's a permanent (well, probably semi-permanent) production at the Pantages! I treated Mum to both shows for her birthday present. Natalie came with us to this one too. They didn't know anything about Wicked, but they were excited to be getting out of the house for something other than work. On the Friday before I came back Natalie's daughter Debbie was playing in the orchestra for a community college production of Once Upon This Island, so we went to that too. Needless to say, after South Pacific and Wicked, this was a bit of a letdown. Maybe if we'd seen that one first. I mean, it wasn't terrible, but it was definitely an amateur performance (I like to think that we're a little pickier about our lead roles at the WCT... but I'm terribly afraid we aren't always).

I haven't been doing much outside of work since I got back. Though yesterday was my birthday and I did get taken out for lunch. Apparently, the Preservation people adopt whoever works in the office across the hall from them, regardless of what department they're in, so Eric and I get included in all they do. It's fun, and I'm enjoying getting to know that group better. I used to see them some when they were on the first floor, but we're in much closer proximity here and it's easier.

Annie opens next weekend at the Civic. I got cast in it, but then I found out that Linda had cast about 60 kids! I told them that I'd just started a new job and we were starting a big project and that I wasn't sure how much spare time I was going to have in the evenings (all of which is true), so thank you but I was going to have to turn down the part. I will be ushering, though. Beth is playing Miss Hannigan and I've heard that she's hilarious, so I'm looking forward to watching her.

I'm still working on El Dorado for Librivox. It's an interesting story, but I keep putting off recording because Armand, from whose perspective most of this story is told, is driving me spare. He's being such an absolute infant that I keep wanting to smack him upside the head. This one's longer than the other Orczy book I did too, much longer. I originally picked it because it's the other book they generally use when they're making a film adaptation, so I know parts of the plot.

It's time to start planning the yearly excursion to Scarborough Faire again! It's not the same since Lauren moved to New York; in fact, we didn't manage to get our schedules sorted in time last year and didn't go at all! Not good. But this year we will go. We will!

Maranda and I both already have people we're thinking of including in the group. I've already sounded Jana, and I need to remember to mention it to Sherry. I don't know if MB is much of a faire goer, but I'll ask her as well. I was thinking of asking Bobby as well, since he came with us the first year. We'll see.

Fortunately, the faire runs a couple weekends beyond the end of Mattress, so we do have some dates available to us. Yay! I can't wait!

In other news, I was told that Melissa hasn't seen Music Man yet either!! So, we're including her in our SKVE intervention night... when we get around to it. Darn the weather that forced us to put it off the first time!

I found out last night that Regan has never seen The Music Man! It came about because, when Lise was blocking Swamps of Home she was trying to explain that in a particular section of the song, she wanted us to look a bit like the women doing the Grecian Urns (one Grecian urn... two Grecian urns... and a fountain, trickle, trickle, trickle), and Regan didn't have a clue what she was talking about!

This from a... well, ok, she was never a music major, just an undecided music enthusiast, but she took lots of music classes, you'd think somewhere, someone would have introduced her to The Music Man! Well, if no one else will do it, I will. We're having a movie night someday soon (just need to get our schedules sorted) so she can watch it.

If Mary Beth and Sherry can make it too, we'll make a SKVE night of it. We've been talking about asking Regan to join the SKVEs and this would be a good trial run, to see if she's up to our particular brand of movie-watching. The last person we invited, Kelita, couldn't seem to understand why we found it so amusing to MST3K our way through Pride and Prejudice ("look, I have a sword!", "are you sure those are period sheep?").

Yeah, I've been watching Eddie Izzard again lately ("I've got legs. D'you like... bread? I've got a french loaf! WHACK Bye! I love you!"). I can't help myself, the man's a comic genius! I'm very proud of the fact that I've converted several of my friends to the Izzard... let's call it cult, shall we?

And speaking of friends, we're going to get together in a couple of weeks (as soon as we all have a free evening, all at the same time) and have a Jane Austen night. Considering the number of Jane Austen films that have come out lately, it'll probably be the first in a series of Jane Austen nights. Yay!

I went to see Firewall yesterday... with one of my classes... and the professor paid. Now that's what I call a field trip! The class is cyberwarfare, and basically, we went to see the movie so we could criticize... uh, critique it and the various technologies they use in it. It was fun, but it wasn't really realistic... not that we expected it to be... it is a Harrison Ford movie, after all.

So I was going to go bowling on Sunday with some friends, but we're all so laid back that we didn't actually manage to get our plans together in time, so we didn't. <paranoid>Or maybe they did and they didn't invite me!</paranoid>

You know, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't necessarily mean they're not out to get you.

I'm thinking of starting to re-read the Harry Potter books because the sixth one's coming out in July. I figure, taking it leisurely, and taking time off for stuff I'm actually supposed to read, like textbooks, I'll be done just before the new one's released.

So I went bowling the other night with my new bowling ball, and I scored a 160 on the first game!! That's my highest score to date. Of course, on the second game I didn't even break 100, but I rallied on the third and managed a 122, which is closer to my normal.

As usual, I had a pretty good time with my mother, but by the end of the first week, I was ready for her to be out of my apartment. I love both my parents, but a week is as long as I can handle with either of them, if we're staying in the same house.

It's back to work tomorrow, so I'm making the most of my last day off. At the moment it's nearly 2:30pm, and I'm still in my pjs. I've been doing some reading and watching some shows that got recorded while my mother was here. I have to go to the post office at some point today, but other than that, I'm free to be a slob and a vegetable, and I'm enjoying it a great deal. If you'll excuse me, I have to go back to doing nothing.