Chaos Attraction

Staycation 1: Tie-Dye, Lectures, Desert Bluffs, Shopping, Therapy, Henry VII

2014-06-19, 4:42 p.m.

So last week I was on vacation. Technically speaking. It did not feel like much of a vacation since I stayed around here and didn't go anywhere except literally back and forth between here and Sacramento and the Bay Area about every day and a half. Yeah, seriously. But Mom had to use two weeks by the end of the month and she wanted me around for some of it. I can't take off the last week of the month, so I took last week off and she'll just have to amuse herself by not cleaning on her next week off. Or whatever.

The schedule:
Last Friday and Saturday: Mom had some kooky religious speaker to go to or something with her more religious friends, so I had some peace and quiet around these parts. I can't really remember much of what I did. We had a tie-dyeing party at the Craft Center--they wanted us to use up the current stash of mixed dye. I had fun squirting up two shirts, but now I don't really have anywhere to rinse them out until the CC reopens again, so that was a little inconvenient. They also needed a better tie-dye setup than the lazy-assed one they had going on (hint: waterproof tablecloths...I'm pretty sure we have to have SOME around here). I went to the gym and mostly lounged around by the pool a lot on Saturday.

Sunday: I had a meeting to go to at my lecture series club organization thingy. It was stuff Mom would not have interest in plus she'd have to pay money to go, so she stayed home that day. I went to the library book sale and ran some errands before going. The lecture was....kinda frustrating. It's a topic I'm interested in, but it's super damn complicated because it originated in India and I have a hard enough time just trying to figure out the language when a good chunk of the words seem to be something like "Uppertatwagagawhodavisha" or something. THE SPELLING, argh. Even worse is when you are trying to write down these words when you can only see them in tiny text on a Power Point...briefly...or not at all. And the lady had a lovely tendency to stand blocking half of the screen AND skipping past the long pages of text so that I couldn't get all of the notes. GRRRRR.

After that, I went to the Roseville Joann's, which is lovely and huge and had a great yarn selection. I have an idea of making a Desert Bluffs skirt (sort of a companion to the Night Vale sweater, though I am also now kinda interested in trying that too....). I found a boring skirt pattern to adapt and did a graphed out design for the skirt, and got the appropriate yarn to replicate the logo. I haven't started on this yet though, not sure when I will. I should attempt to start it soon if I want to try to get it into my show in August, but since I'm also working on some freestyle knitting for that....priorities, priorities. Especially when both projects are along the lines of huge and/or complicated and/or hard to work on "on the move," i.e. hauling ALL of it to work/the CC/meetings/whatever.

I don't know why I'm sickly obsessed with Desert Bluffs. I can't explain it. Other than...SMILING GOD SUN SO SHINY....LOOK AT ITS TEETH....THE SUN.....or something.

Oh, while I'm at it, some random art I found for Night Vale while searching for the sweater and DB logo:
* Monday would like you to leave it alone.
* StrexCorp mandatory company picnic poster!
* Night Vale pop up card is marvelous.
* Welcome to Night Vale sign is pretty.
* Hah, this cross stitch!

I was hoping Mom would take her sweet time about coming on Monday, but she elected to arrive here around 11. She wanted to know--well, basically, what I was going to do to entertain her. And I had no bloody idea. Where the hell am I gonna take her on a Monday afternoon? Oh, right. Shopping, because what else is there to do. So we got clothes and shoes. There you go. I entertained her at night with my DVD set of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Oh yeah, and we also took my car in early for the infamous sunroof repairs. I also managed to finally drive enough to actually be due for an oil change and tire rotation, so I added that to the list of requests and said I'd pay for that on my own time.

I should probably specify at this point that he'd told Mom that if we turned in the car on Tuesday (I guess he was expecting to get the parts in then for the roof), it could be done by Thursday. I was all, um, what, okay....I guess....

On Tuesday, I dragged Mom to group therapy with my shrink. She was originally not super thrilled at the idea of hashing out the whole car drama (I wished we could have done this before this, but oh well), but it actually went marvelously well. And when I say that, I mean to the point that Mom has agreed to start doing proper therapy again, and I don't mean with some not-super-well-trained Christian counselor or the halfasses at our HMO, neither of which has clearly worked too well. Yes, she's also seeing my shrink via phone and the occasional in person visit. I am fine with this, for the record. She agreed to come back for a session during an open slot on Thursday afternoon, since we had to be back here to pick up the car then anyway.

Then we went back to the Bay Area that afternoon because Mom had booked us (and Mauricio, haven't seen him in awhile) to go to this series.

So the local museum is having monthly speakers who impersonate (and have researched thoroughly) historical characters. To quote from their website: "Many of the speakers in the series are Chautauquans, a type of historical character performance originating in Chautauqua, New York. The Chautauquan is in character from the moment they step onto the stage, through a Q & A portion, and finally will step out of character to answer questions that the historic character they portray could not address."

We were seeing Henry the Eighth, which was....intimidating. I mean, think about it. This is one of the most bipolar characters in English history. One moment he's cheerful and having fun and making jokes and the next minute he's snarling and his eyes are bugging the fuck out of his head and he's TERRIFYING. (The photo in the link does not do the eye-bugging-out justice.) How would you feel watching this guy and knowing it's a small theater and he's watching you? And then there's a Q&A and you're actually TALKING to that guy? Of course the audience was fairly well scared to start asking questions--and yeah, he did have a rage-out at one of them, though I forget which one it was.

The guy did an excellent job and I really wish I could have taken notes and remembered quotes from what he said. (But uh....did I mention I was sitting right in the eyeline of the throne? I was knitting under my jacket and hoping he wouldn't yell at me!) The amount of pissy he had at various people was scary yet interesting. And it was amusing when people asked him about his son and heir and things like that. When the guy finally went out of character at the end, it was kind of a relief. He said playing King Henry was his favorite (he also does Babe Ruth and one of the people who discovered the Donner Party...he got asked to play someone IN the Donner Party but said, "Have you seen what I look like?") because of the bipolarity. Mom was kind of shocked that he hadn't wanted to go purchase an outfit and eventually had the drama department come up with one, but I was all, "That would be one expensive outfit." He didn't have any remotely suitable shoes though--I know that's the hardest part of historical cosplay, but comfy slip-ons that look beat up, ah....yeah, couldn't help but nitpick that 'cause I'm a clothing nerd.

Anyway, it was an awesome show and I'm sorry I can't normally go to such a thing because they only hold them on Tuesdays. I'd like to check out the Einstein show even though I probably wouldn't comprehend a lick of it.


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