A couple of weeks ago I had to spend the morning in line at the auto registration office and pay an ungodly fine for getting my car inspected late a couple of years ago.
Was the morning a total loss? Of course not. If I was going to put that much time in queueing up to pay fines, by cracky I was going to turn it into a positive experience. Check out what arrived in the mail today.
Busy day being sure I’m ahead on Jayne hat orders, but I just realized that I never did post about Charlotte’s Can’t Stop the Serenity event!
In a nutshell, everyone had fun and we raised more than double what we did last year. More than $6500 went to Equality Now. Go Browncoats!
Since I don’t have time for a long post, how about some pics? I’ll spare you the one of the pre-show festivities, with me and Turtlegirl and Illiane of Emergency Knitting Bag fame out at Charley’s restaurant, with me holding a snowflake martini up, looking three sheets to the wind even though I’ve only had a sip. I almost never drink, but when I do, I get very happy. Whee!
How fantastic do these lovely ladies look? Great costumes! Zoe even placed in our costume contest. One of these charmers won the Jayne hat, and they were just so over-the-top excited and squealy about it that I had to take a picture. Awwww!
For those wondering, yes, they are sitting in pews. We had our screening this year at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Sharon Amity Rd., and it was a great choice. We were able to do things we couldn’t last year, like have live entertainment in the form of Cedric from the Bedlam Bards, and also a local woman named Spot. Good stuff! There were also refreshments, and a huge space for all the many, many prizes donated.
Here’s a pic of Turtlegirl and Illiane examining the prizes they won. Turtlegirl also posted about the screening and the cotton Jayne hat she made while there. I managed to knock out a wool one myself.
And speaking of prizes, check it out! I bought extra raffle tickets because the prizes were so shiny. And because it was for charity. But the prizes definitely played a part. There were a couple of things I was really coveting, and I got ’em! Woo!
Look at the gorgeous Firefly pint glass! This was the perfect item for me. My husband brews beer, and I wanted this for him. It came with a business card for http://www.goodguycomics.com/ , so many thanks to them for their generous donation. It was much appreciated, and I will definitely visit them next time I need a unique gift.
I also won the other item I really, really wanted, which was this Fruity Oaty lunchbox! These are available at Things From Another World. At first glance, it may have appeared that the lunchbox was empty when I received it, but it was actually full of awesomeness and potential.
Boy, I said I wasn’t going to make a long post, but I did go on a bit, didn’t I? That coffee musta kicked in!
I hope you all have a very shiny day!
Sorry the updates have lately been of the “quick! here’s a funny picture/link!” variety. In the summer, time gets a little more precious and it’s tough to eke out enough time for a meaty journal entry.
The cell phone dried out and now works just fine. It was touch and go there for a while – first the “enter” button didn’t work, then the “7” didn’t work, but now everything’s hunky dorey. Hurray! I get to keep my phone, which I am considering naming Hulk for its durability and size. Or maybe She-Hulk, since I actually read that comic.
Jayne hats continue apace. The line so far hasn’t gotten as low as it did last summer. I don’t think it will, now that CSTS has happened, as that event puts Firefly more top of mind for folks. It’s still amazing to me that there’s been a waiting list continually since early 2005. Atsa lotta Jayne hats.
At left, Emily art! She has re-written the Bard. In Emily’s version, Romeo goes over to Juliet’s house and gets married. Since he gets married at her place, he takes her last name instead of vice versa. They move in together and apparently Romeo throws a birthday party for Juliet. And they all live happily ever after. Dig the toothy grin on Romeo. That hack Shakespeare could learn a few things from Emily.
Em has decided she doesn’t want to go to astronomy camp. This is because she came home at about 10pm from the in-laws last week, and it made her realize just how tired she’ll be at that time. Honestly, this may be for the best. We were playing a board game last night at about 8:45, and she get rather upset (sad, not tantrumy) that she hadn’t won any of the three games we played. If it hadn’t been that late at night, she would have been just fine. We played one more game, which she won, so that helped a little, but mainly she was just tired.
If she can’t handle life at 8:45, I don’t know how she’d do on a car ride back from Gastonia at 10pm. Too bad the camp is paid for. I’m going to see if there are any other little kids in our life, maybe up in that neck of the woods, who might like to go.
However, today we’re going to the planetarium anyway, and to help soothe her last night I told her we could go to all three shows – the 2,3, and 4, which are different shows. We were going to go yesterday, but they weren’t going to do the Summer Sky Show, which is where an astronomy buff stands up and talks about the constellations. I find it interesting that she likes that more than a pre-programmed show with music and production values. Just a guy talking about the stars, that’s her speed.
I just this second got back in from Can’t Stop the Serenity Charlotte, and it was GREAT. I’ll post in glorious fruity oaty detail tomorrow.
I have childcare for Saturday night! I can go to Serenity! WOOOOOOO!!!!!
Pictured: me on the right in blue shirt, helping someone with earflaps at last year’s Serenity screening. This year there’ll be a costume contest too. Turtlegirl, it’d be the perfect time to wear that felt thing that looks like a space blanket. I’m just sayin’…
Too, too excited! Yay!
…or “How Hillary Spent Her Summer Vacation.” I’m sorry, Em’s choice of names just amuses me.
“Bill and Chelsea went into Chelsea’s pool. Chelsea’s mom was there to watch.”
Because, you know, safety first. That long thing to the right with legs coming off of it is a water slide. There’s a splash in the pool at the base of the slide. The circles are lights inside the pool, so they can swim at night if they want to. Chelsea’s mom appears to be wearing a dress and heels while lying on a wheeled deck chair. Ah, this is the life.
“4 other kids (two boys and two girls) came. So they played Marco Polo.”
The kids are labeled as Lindsay, Chelsea, Jimmy, Bill, Sarah, and Robert. Looks like little Barack wasn’t invited. The large thing behind them is a ladder so they can climb out of the pool. Or possibly a diving board. On the face of it, it looks like Robert’s the only one in the pool and everybody else has cheated and gotten out, but I may be misinterpreting. At any rate, it looks like everybody’s smiling and happy, so that’s good.
In knitting, no way is this going to be a size 4T legwarmer. Time to rip it out and de-biggen it.
All the Can’t Stop the Serenity Jayne hats should be at their destinations, except for Dallas’s bonus “baby Jayne” and Raleigh’s hat, both of which should arrive tomorrow. There’s a chance I may not be able to make the full Serenity screening here in town – I may know tonight – but if I can’t then Em and I will go to the pre-show festivities and drop off the hat. I think Em would enjoy the costume contest and hearing Cedric the Bard. She enjoyed him when we went to that bar uptown. Yes, I took my daughter to a bar. What? I needed a designated driver.
Here’s a link to a YouTube video of the Bedlam Bards, of which Cedric is one half, singing “Hero of Canton” when they performed in Charlotte at Ri-Ra’s. The sound and video quality aren’t that hot, but you get the gist. They put on a good show. But no, sadly, those aren’t my Jayne hats that they’re wearing. At the very end, a young woman is twirling around one of my boxes, as I donated a hat to the raffle that they’re about to give away.
There are actually fewer than 10 Jayne hats in line, for a wait time of less than a month. It’s a miracle! WOO! See, if you want to order, NOW is the time, because come August it’s going to start shooting back up again as people start to think about Halloween, Christmas, and cooler weather in general.
Time to hang out more clothes – it’s nice and sunny, but not oppressively hot. Looks like a great day for soccer!
They know me pretty well at my local post office, as you might expect after 900 or so packages mailed. I also know my postal clerks pretty well. And with the exception of the jackass who hit me on the head, I like all of them. (Incidentally, I never saw the head hitter again after that incident, so I never got to take him to task. Hopefully he’s somewhere far away from the general public now.)
There’s guy A who always laughs and jokes around, and there’s guy B who always has a smile and a lollipop for my daughter… and then there’s guy C. I’m gonna call him Luigi.
More about Luigi, and unrequired kindness.
For the first time ever, y’all are going to have a summer Serenity screening! Apparently this is a little late getting organized, but tickets just went on sale. Help spread the word and make Memphis’s event a huge success!
http://mid-southbrowncoats.blogspot.com/
I am now completely and utterly out of orange Jayne yarn. Fortunately, the next couple of http://www.wearwithstyle.com orders are, believe it or not, non-Jayne orders, so that works out all right. I’ve ordered more Jayne yarn by the skein. Hopefully Brown Sheep will see fit to spin more Jayne colors soon so I can stock up on cones again.
In other news, I’ve published the baby Jayne pattern on ravelry. This *should* link to a pdf. If you try it and it doesn’t, will you holler at me? I’m not sure I’ve got it quite right.
I don’t have my other site set up properly to link to it, but I wanted to put it up anyway. This seemed as good a place as any.
There’s a lot more to talk about, but I’ve got a lot to do this morning, so it’ll have to wait. For now, enjoy the pattern!
ETA: It’s about 1pm, and 30 people have already downloaded the pattern. I picture armies of tiny, drooling Jaynes. Shiny!
I got a lot of mileage out of the leftover leaf-green dye from Sunday’s session. Here we see a small amount of leftover white Dale Baby Ull crammed into a pint Mason jar filled with dye. A day or so later, the dye was absorbed and the liquid was mostly clear. The picture doesn’t capture the correct color – it’s more of a grass green.
In other news, more banana chocolate chip muffins than two people could possibly eat.
Emily: “Maybe next time you can make strawberry muffins. That would be good.”
Everybody’s a critic.
I’m up to mid-March on hat orders. Next up: London, Alberta, and New York.