anagram of brat

New glasses are new! And shiny! And dyeeeerrrrrgh! I'm still adjusting to them three days later. It was crazy, I put them on for the first time and WHOA NELLIE THE CLARITY IT BURNS US PRECIOUS! Which is all well and good, it was just a major adjustment. My old lenses were so scratched up and the coating was so dead that the having the new shinies on was... yeah. Whee.

The nice bit is that for the first time I have a workable sunglass type thing. The new hotnesses had a little clip on shade option so I ordered it. Sunglasses, man. I AM IMPERVIOUS TO THE EVIL DEATH RAYS OF THE DAY STAR WHILE DRIVING! Or something.

The last interesting thing about new glasses is that now that I have the new ones, all the dysfunctional patterns of behavior I'd unconsciously developed to accommodate the old busted ones are actually noticable now that I don't have to continue them. I used to hold my head at a weird angle when bending over or looking down to keep the old ones from falling off. Don't have to do that anymore, but noticed I still was last night when I was gathering up the laundry. Blerg. The other is that I hadn't noticed how close I was sitting to various computer screens or holding books and devices. Too close. It's kinda nice to be able to sit back and still see what I'm doing. Probably better for me too from an ergonomic standpoint. Plus they're cute. I'd camerawhore, but between allergies and having the Cold that Doesn't end, my nose has erupted into this special tantrum of cold sore mayhem. It's gross, and I hope it gets at least marginally presentable by Pax. But anyway. New glasses are awesome.

The weekend in general was a good one, mostly hanging with the short people doing quiet things. Lil'Beast was having a super hug and cuddle sort of weekend, which was a nice change. And Kidzilla continues to be her amusing self. I've been especially tickled by the fact that she's already developed a fantastic flounce - she now leaves the room in a hilariously indignant huff if either we tease her past a certain point or fail to behave like her interpretation of rational serious grown-ups. I always thought that was more of a teenager skill, but at seven, she's got it down and it is funny as hell.

One of the things I've been enjoying about their visits indirectly is that Kidzilla actually really likes Doctor Who and has been watching the newer series with her father on Netflix. Being the giant fanboy that he is, cell23 is over the moon that she's enjoying it. Yesterday we all watched "A Good Man Goes to War" and it was really fun watching Kidzilla react to the various bits of the episodes, even if a lot of the humor went over her head. (The Sontoran's line about "superior lactic fluid" still cracks me the fuck up.) But that first moment when the Doctor makes his surprise appearance on Demon's Run? She bounced in her chair and clapped her hands; it was adorable. Makes me sort of wonder if the Sarah Jane adventures are on Netflix, though awww, Elizabeth Sladen... *still sad*

In addition to the glasses I also acquired a working printer/scanner thing on Friday, and seeing as I had things to print yesterday afternoon (more on that in a bit) I got it set up. This wouldn't warrant mentioning other than it's Fisher Price My First Wireless Printer (what the hell is this wifi witchcraft? THE FUTURE) and watching the cat warily trying to ascertain what sort of intruder this thing was was unexpectedly hilarious. She'd walk up and sniff it, then it would suddenly start printing and she'd be all AAAAGH IT MOVED HOLY SHIT RUN AWAY!

Why is cat trauma so fucking funny?

Anyway, the reason to print stuff is that thedavin made an attempt to resurrect Drinktank, which from what I understand was a short-lived Squirekids writing workshop involving a nonzero amount of alcohol, and I decided what the hell, I'd go both to spite my socially anxious hermit tendencies and to jumpstart my writing some. Also get over that whole crippling fear of people reading my shit. It turned out to just be me, thedavin and bloodandsmoke in attendance, and none of us drank, but that said, we did join thedavin's family dinner (which was quite with the tasty) and had an enjoyable evening critiquing each other's work. I got some good feedback on the story intro I'd brought with me, as well as some suggestions for where the story could go afterwards. Reminds me, I need to type up the notes I'd made on both of their contributions and send them out. But anyway afterward I went home and spent some time implementing the suggestions received and starting to scribble down ideas for the next step in the story. Clearly the exercise was good for me, as cell23 did comment that it was nice to see me on a roll again. Anyway, we will definitely be doing it again next month. If anything, it will give me Things To Work On during my PAX downtime this weekend.

Holy shit, PAX is this weekend, eeeeeeeeeee. I don't really anticipate having all that much spending cash - when do I ever? - but the excitement of the rest of the Squirekids going is infectious and I am excited about the panels I want to attend and the list of exhibitors. I will probably spend some part of this week assembling my convention survival gear (ha). But yeah, I'm getting excited and looking forward to Friday.

All right people, and Internet at large, I have a request: I'm looking for children's books (chapter or picture) that are either set entirely or have key scenes set in Boston.

Ones I've thought of already:

Make Way for Ducklings (Robert McCloskey) - Obviously.
The Trumpet of the Swan (E.B. White)
You Can't Take a Balloon into the MFA (Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman)

Help me add to the list? I need ~7 more.

EDIT Suggestions:

Johnny Tremain (Esther Forbes)
‎The Fifth of March (Ann Rinaldi)
Zachary's Ball (?)
Oh Boy, Boston! (Patricia Reilly Giff)

If people are interested in reading about the Mysterious SQWRRL Project (this will include lots of nattering on about programming and QRCodes, sophomoric jokes about nuts, and occasional rants about how squirrels are all evil and need to be destroyed written in-character by the game's main antagonist) I've started a separate LJ/blog for it over at sqwrrl.

There's also a twitter (CBombSQWRRL) but I haven't been nearly as good about keeping up with that. That will mostly be in-character squirrel-flavored Hatorade though.

Disclaimer: I actually don't hate squirrels, I kinda think they're perversely cute when they're not being the assholes of the rodent world.

So it's that month.

I'm not bothering with it this year, mostly because I know what's gonna happen - I'm going to go with it for three days and get distracted. But I will, instead, devote the month to other things, like work and playing with squirrels. That seems like a worthy alternate activity. We'll see where I am time, headspace and otherwise this time next year.

From the CDC by way of Wikipedia, regarding rabies (emphasis mine):

"Small rodents such as squirrels, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rats, and mice and lagomorphs like rabbits and hares are almost never found to be infected with rabies and are not known to transmit rabies to humans."

...orly?



(nope, still not telling... yet. Hee hee hee)