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Uuuuugh here come the excuses!
I had really intended to post before I visited my sister. And then after visiting my sister but before going to GenCon. And then after GenCon but sooner than, y'know, two weeks later. But that just...like...didn't happen, y'know? Y'know. So here's another obnoxiously lengthy entry because I'm too lazy to break it into thematic chunks.
The day before Independence Day, we used the new firepit to toast s'mores over the embers of Wyatt's schoolwork. He'd been saving it up, so there was quite a bit. We suggested he save some for another night but it was symbolically important to him to burn it all at once. So we did. The s'more I ate that was cooked over econ homework has made me smarterer, right? Pretty sure that's just science.
The dang dog was outside with us the whole time and, it being the day it was, people were setting off fireworks not a block away. And he was fine. No issues whatsoever. For some reason fireworks and thunder are only scary when he's indoors. Jerk.
The 4th of July was great. Jason and both boys joined me, meaning we had fantastic seats for the fireworks and plenty of time to get food between VF singing and the show beginning. And since it fell on a Friday this year, it didn't matter how late we got home!
The following weekend, Jason got a message from Zach's wife Dana, saying that Zach was having severe abdominal pain, and urgent care had said it was either appendicitis or a hernia, and since she was out of town with her ailing father, could Jason be on call for the next couple days? Welp, appendicitis can turn on a dime and we're a half hour away, so Jason spent the night and whole next day with Zach, including getting him in to see a general practitioner. They confirmed it was not appendicitis, but over the next couple weeks we learned it was actually three hernias. His surgery isn't until September, and in the meantime he can't go to work because he can't sit or stand for long periods of time. No GenCon either. Poor guy.
I got an oil change before the trip to Vermont and they apparently changed some setting in my car because it started displaying my speed in kmph. It was a bit of a surprise when I was merrily driving along, keeping pace with traffic, and noticed I was doing 90. Oddly, nothing else on the dash was in kilometers - it still had miles of cruising range and average miles per gallon. I was luckily able to switch it back without any issue.
My trip to see Rebecca was great. Her new house is amazing, and we worked together to get her kitchen almost entirely set up, which I know was a load off her mind. She was perfectly capable of doing it herself, of course, but sometimes it's nice to have another person there just to say, "Okay let's do this thing. As in right now." We also did a fair amount of thrifting and even managed to find me a wedding dress on the very first day! It fit perfectly except for being about seven inches too long. Becca was going to hem it but when she realized it would take basically our entire week together, I told her I'd take it to a tailor closer to home. In another stroke of luck, my chorusmate Deb agreed to do it, and so I've been heading to her place on Thursdays. I've gone twice so far, but it'll require at least two more visits to finish, so I'm very glad I got to spend my time with my sister doing other things!
Other things, that is, such as touring the Main Street Museum and chatting with one of the Movie Night guys I got to know during the pandemic, visiting all the birdies at VINS, hiking around the weird artwork at the Path of Life, and attending trivia night with some of her work friends. I also stopped by rehearsal with the local Sweet Adelines chorus, Valley Chords. They are very, very small: there were eight of us there, including the director and three visitors - but we had all four parts! I knew four songs in the music binder they handed me - Sway, This is My Country, San Francisco Bay Blues, and Don't Stop. We sang the latter two, largely because I knew them and could hold the bass part (though SFBB was a bit of a struggle, as it'd been a few years since I last sang it with the Hearts). They were also preparing for a regional event that involved a lot of tags, so we worked on those a lot too. That kind of leveled the playing field, since nobody knew those very well coming in. The local BHS chapter is pretty active, with both a men's and a mixed chorus, and hopes to start a women's chorus as well, so I suspect the SAI chorus will fold and they will go sing with BHS. Which is a shame for SAI, but I'd rather people be singing at all, regardless of organization.
Four days after I returned from Vermont, we hit the road again. Since Zach couldn't go, Eick rode with us to GenCon. We'd talked about hitting Lego stores on the way to get my passport stamped but decided to skip it in favor of visiting an unofficial Lego museum ten minutes off the trail in Bellaire, Ohio. It's closed on Mondays, so we couldn't hit it on the way home. And let me tell you, this place was so cursed. First of all, it's in what clearly used to be an elementary school, the old fortress-looking kind made of tan bricks with a parking lot enclosed by a ten-foot chain-link fence. There was exactly one car in the lot besides ours. The building had no air conditioning and, as we were to soon find out, the entire city had no water. Nothing had been dusted in years; there were puddles in the basement; a large number of the displays were animated with the most unsettling and jerky motions. The icing on the cake (or perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back?) was an enormous robot band that sang about being robots from Mars for, like, seven minutes - until we turned it back off. It was perhaps the perfect stop for our little trio, since Jason loves Lego, I love tacky tourist traps, and Eick loves sending pictures of weird shit to his wife. Check, check, and check!
Hours later, we took an exit for one last bathroom stop before Indy, and we just happened to be at the Uranus Fudge Factory. We'd seen a billboard for it and laughed at how hard they were leaning into the poop jokes - "The #2 Attraction in America!" - but would not have made a special trip. Kismet! We had a great time browsing the silliness, picked up a bunch of ridiculous souvenirs for folks, ate some delicious ice cream, and headed on our way. What a great road trip!
The Con itself was fun as well. Eick and Zach's hotel was about a mile from the convention center, so he rented a scooter each day, but our hotel was further out so we caught a Lyft. Not cheap, but definitely less expensive (and stressful) than driving in and parking each day. Like last year, we spent most of our time exploring the vendor room and other organization tables, amassing freebies and spending way more money than we have any business doing. We also painted some more miniatures - this year I did an owlbear, Jason did an orc Captain America, and Eick did a little robot - and attended a couple of crafting events: sewing a witch hat (which turned out to be 50% size, so I guess we made witch hats for Cash and Umbra?) and making a chainmail dice bag (which we did not finish but we understand how, so we can finish them with a pair of plyers and time). We'd signed up for an X-Crawl Classics game set in some kind of alternate 1990s shopping mall, but the GM never showed up. Luckily, another guy stepped in and we played the setting they were using for that year's XCC competition. Which was fun, but it was still disappointing to not be able to play the game we'd paid for. The only other special event we attended was a standup comedy set, which was pretty funny - it was billed as "nerdy and dirty" so the humor was both geeky and raunchy. We had a good time.
Saturday evening we said goodbye to Eick, who would be flying home the next morning, and drove to Illinois to visit my mom. I forgot about the time change so we arrived an hour earlier than expected, but that meant we could have dinner with Mom and then spend some time with Jen and Ben, since they were leaving town to visit Eleanore early the next morning. Sunday we did some shopping (and even found wedding shoes for me!), relaxed, and then my old friend Chris came over for dinner. She isn't able to come to the wedding, so I was glad she was able to finally meet Jason. I swear Jen and Chris never change. I wonder if they say the same about me.
On the chorus front, things are looking up. I'd assumed that turning down the wildcard spot for Internationals meant turning down Internationals entirely, but I was incorrect: we will be in next year's Harmony Classic! So that's exciting. Not only does that guarantee some kind of medal (since there are only five participants in each division), but we will also be competing in Regionals next year like normal, without Song of Atlanta in the mix! Pretty exciting!
We've had several farmers market gigs, which are great for publicity and decent for money (it's unpaid but we can get tips), but so freaking hot. We have a tent and fans and even a swamp cooler but omg we just melt. Unmuted sang for a chorusmate's grandmother's birthday, which is always so rewarding. VF also has three shows coming up: the annual show in October (which we basically finished the script for last week) and two holiday shows on the same day in December. I count them separately because the matinee will be family-friendly with activities for the kids, while the evening show will include dinner and more of the less caroling-style songs, like O Holy Night.
We're also working hard on chorus culture. When I joined VF, there were - so far as I can recall - 44 active members. Since then, we've gained nine members (including Sophia) and lost fifteen (three of which both joined and left in the time that I've been a member), for a net loss of six. The latest is Carri, a front row lead (and occasional baritone when we needed her), webmaster, longtime membership recruitment coordinator, Regional Competition liaison, and most recent Sweet Adeline of the Year. Her departure hit me pretty hard and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe because I took over membership recruitment and webmaster duties while she was on the leave of absence she never returned from, so I never felt like I got a solid transition period. Maybe because four of our members have joined Harbor City, two of whom quit VF to do so (Jeanine and Beth are dualing). But we are making an effort. We've added a brief time during rehearsal for folks to share personal news, both good and bad, just to keep up with what's going on with folks. We circle up and sing a song together at the end, which puts a nice cap on the night. People need to be reminded that their presence is both noticed and desired, both as a voice and as an individual.
School starts tomorrow. I can't decide if the summer went fast or felt endless. Probably a little bit of both. The boys visited Jo for a few days last month to help her clean out her basement and garage. They brought back a whole lot of stuff that belonged to Jason's mom, including a ton of books for me to BookCross. I'm so glad they get along with their grandma so well. Speaking of which, Jo and Hanette have scheduled their wedding for just ten days after ours. They're having it down here, so we don't even have to travel far.
Today marks one month until our wedding. There's still plenty left to do, but it's starting to feel manageable. My big hurdle was ordering the flowers. I just didn't wanna. Twenty years ago, at my first wedding, I also complained about dealing with flowers. Some things never change. But it's done! Bachelor and Bachelorette parties have been scheduled. Rings have arrived. Cake has been ordered. DJ has been hired. Wedding party gifts have been sorted. I think all my bridesmaids have dresses. We have a few more Lego flowers to build and vases to procure, but that's no big thing. There are a lot of other little details to work out, but I ain't bothered.
We've got this.
I had really intended to post before I visited my sister. And then after visiting my sister but before going to GenCon. And then after GenCon but sooner than, y'know, two weeks later. But that just...like...didn't happen, y'know? Y'know. So here's another obnoxiously lengthy entry because I'm too lazy to break it into thematic chunks.
The day before Independence Day, we used the new firepit to toast s'mores over the embers of Wyatt's schoolwork. He'd been saving it up, so there was quite a bit. We suggested he save some for another night but it was symbolically important to him to burn it all at once. So we did. The s'more I ate that was cooked over econ homework has made me smarterer, right? Pretty sure that's just science.
The dang dog was outside with us the whole time and, it being the day it was, people were setting off fireworks not a block away. And he was fine. No issues whatsoever. For some reason fireworks and thunder are only scary when he's indoors. Jerk.
The 4th of July was great. Jason and both boys joined me, meaning we had fantastic seats for the fireworks and plenty of time to get food between VF singing and the show beginning. And since it fell on a Friday this year, it didn't matter how late we got home!
The following weekend, Jason got a message from Zach's wife Dana, saying that Zach was having severe abdominal pain, and urgent care had said it was either appendicitis or a hernia, and since she was out of town with her ailing father, could Jason be on call for the next couple days? Welp, appendicitis can turn on a dime and we're a half hour away, so Jason spent the night and whole next day with Zach, including getting him in to see a general practitioner. They confirmed it was not appendicitis, but over the next couple weeks we learned it was actually three hernias. His surgery isn't until September, and in the meantime he can't go to work because he can't sit or stand for long periods of time. No GenCon either. Poor guy.
I got an oil change before the trip to Vermont and they apparently changed some setting in my car because it started displaying my speed in kmph. It was a bit of a surprise when I was merrily driving along, keeping pace with traffic, and noticed I was doing 90. Oddly, nothing else on the dash was in kilometers - it still had miles of cruising range and average miles per gallon. I was luckily able to switch it back without any issue.
My trip to see Rebecca was great. Her new house is amazing, and we worked together to get her kitchen almost entirely set up, which I know was a load off her mind. She was perfectly capable of doing it herself, of course, but sometimes it's nice to have another person there just to say, "Okay let's do this thing. As in right now." We also did a fair amount of thrifting and even managed to find me a wedding dress on the very first day! It fit perfectly except for being about seven inches too long. Becca was going to hem it but when she realized it would take basically our entire week together, I told her I'd take it to a tailor closer to home. In another stroke of luck, my chorusmate Deb agreed to do it, and so I've been heading to her place on Thursdays. I've gone twice so far, but it'll require at least two more visits to finish, so I'm very glad I got to spend my time with my sister doing other things!
Other things, that is, such as touring the Main Street Museum and chatting with one of the Movie Night guys I got to know during the pandemic, visiting all the birdies at VINS, hiking around the weird artwork at the Path of Life, and attending trivia night with some of her work friends. I also stopped by rehearsal with the local Sweet Adelines chorus, Valley Chords. They are very, very small: there were eight of us there, including the director and three visitors - but we had all four parts! I knew four songs in the music binder they handed me - Sway, This is My Country, San Francisco Bay Blues, and Don't Stop. We sang the latter two, largely because I knew them and could hold the bass part (though SFBB was a bit of a struggle, as it'd been a few years since I last sang it with the Hearts). They were also preparing for a regional event that involved a lot of tags, so we worked on those a lot too. That kind of leveled the playing field, since nobody knew those very well coming in. The local BHS chapter is pretty active, with both a men's and a mixed chorus, and hopes to start a women's chorus as well, so I suspect the SAI chorus will fold and they will go sing with BHS. Which is a shame for SAI, but I'd rather people be singing at all, regardless of organization.
Four days after I returned from Vermont, we hit the road again. Since Zach couldn't go, Eick rode with us to GenCon. We'd talked about hitting Lego stores on the way to get my passport stamped but decided to skip it in favor of visiting an unofficial Lego museum ten minutes off the trail in Bellaire, Ohio. It's closed on Mondays, so we couldn't hit it on the way home. And let me tell you, this place was so cursed. First of all, it's in what clearly used to be an elementary school, the old fortress-looking kind made of tan bricks with a parking lot enclosed by a ten-foot chain-link fence. There was exactly one car in the lot besides ours. The building had no air conditioning and, as we were to soon find out, the entire city had no water. Nothing had been dusted in years; there were puddles in the basement; a large number of the displays were animated with the most unsettling and jerky motions. The icing on the cake (or perhaps the straw that broke the camel's back?) was an enormous robot band that sang about being robots from Mars for, like, seven minutes - until we turned it back off. It was perhaps the perfect stop for our little trio, since Jason loves Lego, I love tacky tourist traps, and Eick loves sending pictures of weird shit to his wife. Check, check, and check!
Hours later, we took an exit for one last bathroom stop before Indy, and we just happened to be at the Uranus Fudge Factory. We'd seen a billboard for it and laughed at how hard they were leaning into the poop jokes - "The #2 Attraction in America!" - but would not have made a special trip. Kismet! We had a great time browsing the silliness, picked up a bunch of ridiculous souvenirs for folks, ate some delicious ice cream, and headed on our way. What a great road trip!
The Con itself was fun as well. Eick and Zach's hotel was about a mile from the convention center, so he rented a scooter each day, but our hotel was further out so we caught a Lyft. Not cheap, but definitely less expensive (and stressful) than driving in and parking each day. Like last year, we spent most of our time exploring the vendor room and other organization tables, amassing freebies and spending way more money than we have any business doing. We also painted some more miniatures - this year I did an owlbear, Jason did an orc Captain America, and Eick did a little robot - and attended a couple of crafting events: sewing a witch hat (which turned out to be 50% size, so I guess we made witch hats for Cash and Umbra?) and making a chainmail dice bag (which we did not finish but we understand how, so we can finish them with a pair of plyers and time). We'd signed up for an X-Crawl Classics game set in some kind of alternate 1990s shopping mall, but the GM never showed up. Luckily, another guy stepped in and we played the setting they were using for that year's XCC competition. Which was fun, but it was still disappointing to not be able to play the game we'd paid for. The only other special event we attended was a standup comedy set, which was pretty funny - it was billed as "nerdy and dirty" so the humor was both geeky and raunchy. We had a good time.
Saturday evening we said goodbye to Eick, who would be flying home the next morning, and drove to Illinois to visit my mom. I forgot about the time change so we arrived an hour earlier than expected, but that meant we could have dinner with Mom and then spend some time with Jen and Ben, since they were leaving town to visit Eleanore early the next morning. Sunday we did some shopping (and even found wedding shoes for me!), relaxed, and then my old friend Chris came over for dinner. She isn't able to come to the wedding, so I was glad she was able to finally meet Jason. I swear Jen and Chris never change. I wonder if they say the same about me.
On the chorus front, things are looking up. I'd assumed that turning down the wildcard spot for Internationals meant turning down Internationals entirely, but I was incorrect: we will be in next year's Harmony Classic! So that's exciting. Not only does that guarantee some kind of medal (since there are only five participants in each division), but we will also be competing in Regionals next year like normal, without Song of Atlanta in the mix! Pretty exciting!
We've had several farmers market gigs, which are great for publicity and decent for money (it's unpaid but we can get tips), but so freaking hot. We have a tent and fans and even a swamp cooler but omg we just melt. Unmuted sang for a chorusmate's grandmother's birthday, which is always so rewarding. VF also has three shows coming up: the annual show in October (which we basically finished the script for last week) and two holiday shows on the same day in December. I count them separately because the matinee will be family-friendly with activities for the kids, while the evening show will include dinner and more of the less caroling-style songs, like O Holy Night.
We're also working hard on chorus culture. When I joined VF, there were - so far as I can recall - 44 active members. Since then, we've gained nine members (including Sophia) and lost fifteen (three of which both joined and left in the time that I've been a member), for a net loss of six. The latest is Carri, a front row lead (and occasional baritone when we needed her), webmaster, longtime membership recruitment coordinator, Regional Competition liaison, and most recent Sweet Adeline of the Year. Her departure hit me pretty hard and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe because I took over membership recruitment and webmaster duties while she was on the leave of absence she never returned from, so I never felt like I got a solid transition period. Maybe because four of our members have joined Harbor City, two of whom quit VF to do so (Jeanine and Beth are dualing). But we are making an effort. We've added a brief time during rehearsal for folks to share personal news, both good and bad, just to keep up with what's going on with folks. We circle up and sing a song together at the end, which puts a nice cap on the night. People need to be reminded that their presence is both noticed and desired, both as a voice and as an individual.
School starts tomorrow. I can't decide if the summer went fast or felt endless. Probably a little bit of both. The boys visited Jo for a few days last month to help her clean out her basement and garage. They brought back a whole lot of stuff that belonged to Jason's mom, including a ton of books for me to BookCross. I'm so glad they get along with their grandma so well. Speaking of which, Jo and Hanette have scheduled their wedding for just ten days after ours. They're having it down here, so we don't even have to travel far.
Today marks one month until our wedding. There's still plenty left to do, but it's starting to feel manageable. My big hurdle was ordering the flowers. I just didn't wanna. Twenty years ago, at my first wedding, I also complained about dealing with flowers. Some things never change. But it's done! Bachelor and Bachelorette parties have been scheduled. Rings have arrived. Cake has been ordered. DJ has been hired. Wedding party gifts have been sorted. I think all my bridesmaids have dresses. We have a few more Lego flowers to build and vases to procure, but that's no big thing. There are a lot of other little details to work out, but I ain't bothered.
We've got this.
