Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Gosh, it’s been a long time since I posted anything moderately useful. I really should get back into the swing of things here.

The truth is, life has settled down into a nice, comfortable pace, and that doesn’t tend to leave much grist for the mill. This is not a BAD thing. kitanzi and I both put a lot of value into our creature comforts, and excitement is largely overrated. But there have been some newsworthy things lately.

kitanzi and I went to Dragon*Con over Labour Day weekend, mostly because it was local and we were able to get cheap tickets from a couple in Texas who were unable to go. We drove down Thursday night after work to register, and then dropped by Friday evening to explore the layout. We had decided against getting a hotel room, since our budget is largely tied up in debt-reduction right now, so we didn’t end up making it to any of the late night events, including, unfortunately, any of the open filk. Oh well. Highlights of the con included:

* seeing the Lost Boys in concert. These guys do a very cool sort of Renn Faire Rock and have a good rapport with their audience.

* hanging out on Saturday with surrdave and taking him to an Alan Moore panel. Now we just have to supply him with some Alan Moore to read

* Art show! Didn’t get anything original this year, but we did get three nice prints from the Print Shop, which now await merely to be framed properly before hanging.

* Dealers room! Not quite the wild abandon I’d have liked to spend there, but we did manage to pick up some comics we were missing, and kitanzi got some neat hairpins.

* The Mighty Rassilon Art Players did a music called “Welcome Back, Potter”, which was delightfully silly and clever.

* The British Media track did several takeoffs on “Whose Line Is It Anyway”, and the one we managed to show up for was hysterical.

* Finally, the peoplewatching. One could spend one’s entire weekend at Dragon*Con just looking at the folks all dressed up. (And it’s so nice to have a partner who doesn’t mind when I girlwatch. *kiss kitanzi*)

Labour Day itself was reserved for laundry and resting after all the excitement of the weekend. It’s nice to have one day each week where you don’t have anywhere to go or be and can just be home and relax.

Wednesday, we went to telynor‘s house to hear all about her trip to ConJose. She showed us her new harp and filled us in on all the details of her week in California.

Thursday morning, I went to see my new ENT about my ongoing sinus problems. We’ve finally decided that I will be needing to have surgery to fix the problems (deviated septum, plus severe blockage of the sinus passageways, which between them makes it hard for anything to really get out of there). The good news is that my new ENT has a subspeciality in musicians and vocal therapy, and he was able to talk very specifically about what effect this may have on my voice. We finally decided to schedule the surgery for November 8th, the Friday after I get back from OVFF. While it’s unlikely that the surgery will hurt my voice, it may respond differently after everything is done, and I don’t want to risk being unfamiliar with those changes when I show up to do my concert.

Friday, we headed up to Tennessee to visit with Shadow and Kender. Kender has been put on bed rest after complications with her pregnancy made too much activity risky, and she was going stir-crazy, so we brought her a big box of books and DVDs to distract her while she’s confined to the house. We also got spend a lot of time playing with Elf and keeping her distracted — how someone is supposed to rest and relax while at the same time keeping up with a four-year-old, I can’t imagine. We plan on going up again weekend after next, when Shadow is on call and will have to be out of the house most of the weekend.

And that’s pretty much the news. You can wake up now.