the deep moans round with many voices

1. Taped, sanded, and painted a fifth frame; touched up the two I painted on Thursday. Then I touched up the fifth on Saturday morning before packing them all into a laundry basket, carefully cushioned by towels, and took them down to NJ.

2. Made a packing list. Then packed.

3. Bought groceries.

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10. Went to see Rogue One with Susan at 4pm. I liked it a lot!

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On the other hand, as Susan justly remarked, there wasn't very much of that ineffable sense of joy/wonder/boundless possibility that is the hallmark of Star Wars at its best and most inspiring. For me, the movie's virtues outweighed that flaw -- I am totally down with Star Wars attempting a gritty and morally gray war movie (the tragedy is not a departure; tragedy is a central theme of the franchise, just as much as hope) -- but judging by reviews a bunch of other people feel differently. And that's okay!

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17. Responded to all the comments on my Yuletide fic and my Daredevil Secret Santa fic. \o/

Mom drove up to Ithaca today to collect Dottie, so as of about 3:30pm I no longer have a dog. Woe!

On the other hand, I have a lot more available time now. Pets are wonderful, but they eat time like nobody's business.

Anyway, we went out for lunch at the Heights Cafe, a restaurant we hadn't yet been to (discovered via a listing of pretty much every restaurant in the greater Ithaca area, which was published in a recent-ish issue of the Ithaca Time and which I duly saved and took down to NJ for Mom's use), which turned out to be both pretty easy to get to and a place we think Aunt Cara would like, and which we may therefore end up visiting again on either the Tuesday or Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

(We are doing Thanksgiving at my place again this year. That pattern began several years ago for perfectly sound logistical reasons, but I have a feeling that this repeated confluence of work schedules and transportation options means that I have accidentally 'inherited' Thanksgiving, whereas Vicky's the one who will 'inherit' Christmas if and when our parents get tired of hosting it. We've done Christmas at Vicky's place twice now (once in Spain, once in DC), but she's never hosted Thanksgiving and I've never hosted Christmas. I'm still gonna make Vicky do all the Thanksgiving cooking, though, while I handle the cleanup and leftover-packaging work. That split ends up making everybody happier than if we tried to split the work 'evenly' or I cooked while she cleaned.)

We also went to Michael's (an artsy-craftsy supply chain) to buy some gold paint and paintbrushes, so I can attempt to touch up the frames of some old pictures my parents inherited from my paternal grandmother. This would be by way of a Christmas present to Mom, who doesn't want to do the work herself.

...

The reason I had Dottie this time is because Mom and Dad compressed a ridiculous number of home renovations into a single two-week period and for obvious reasons could not have a dog around for any of it. (In fact, they couldn't have themselves around for the second half, and duly drove down to DC to visit Vicky, Aunt Jan, and Uncle Charles & Aunt Ji-lan.)

The first week, they had several ceilings repaired and replastered, had the massive hole in the living room wall repaired and replastered (the hole being a side-effect of a water pipe fix from earlier this year), had the hideous wallpaper in the stairwell stripped and destroyed (which should have been done thirty years ago, and I am not exaggerating that time period in the slightest), and then had the entire downstairs plus the stairwell and the main upstairs hallway repainted. The second week, they had the wood floors of the dining room, living room, staircase, and upstairs hallway stripped and refinished, because they were beat all to hell, aka ugly as fuck and a bit splintery in places besides.

So now they are slowly moving furniture back into its normal locations, and also trying to decide what they want to do with regard to carpets and/or area rugs. I think they have decided against wall-to-wall carpeting, but I will be curious to visit at Christmas and see what they've done with the place.

1. Checked this year's Porchfest schedule to figure out when it might be safe to leave on Sunday. I think the best plan is to slip away during the gap between the 12pm and 1pm performances. It will be a small gap, but if I miss it I'll be stuck until 2pm and that's not ideal.

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And now to bed. :)

Oh hey, I found a 1986 addition to the Amazing Mumford saga! (I could not reproduce the multi-space gap between the third and fourth words, but otherwise the typography faithfully follows the original document.)

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The amazing Mumford and Big Bird were fighting. Big Bird was trying to get his bag of gold back. MumFORd had taken it and Would not give it bacK. They fought with swords.

The End.

This is from the 1985 file folder of my accumulated childhood papers. The preceding two thirds of the page are covered in ALLCAPS electric typewriter gibberish, with one brief leap into intelligibility -- "I LOVE [LEGAL NAME]" -- most likely typed by my mom. I suspect I was sitting on her lap.

I am not sure how much of the following story is her taking dictation and how much is her subtly prompting me, but judging by the logic lapses, it was probably mostly me at age three and a half. *wry*

Anyway, the Amazing Mumford!

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THE AMAZING MUMFORD

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS AN AMAZING MUMFORD. HE WAS A MAGICIAN. HE WAS A GOOD ONE. HE MADE THINGS DISAPPEAR. ONE DAY HE CAME TO SESAME STREET AND HE MADE A CARROT DISAPPEAR. HE DID THAT AT MIDNIGHT WHEN EVERYONE WAS ASLEEP. YOU KNOW HOW HE MADE IT DISAPPEAR? HE ATE IT AND THAT'S HOW HE MADE IT DISAPPEAR! IN THE MORNING EVERYBODY GOT ANGRY. "DON'T DO THAT AGAIN," THEY SHOUTED. HE MADE HIMSELF DISAPPEAR WITH HIS MAGIC. THEN HE WENT BACK TO HIS HOUSE. AND THEY DID NOT LIKE THE AMAZING MUMFORD FOR EVERMORE. AND THE AMAZING MUMFORD MADE ALL THE SESAME STREET PEOPLE DISAPPEAR. AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER. BUT THEN THE AMAZING MUMFORD GOT ANGRY AT THEM.

THE END