Chaos Attraction

Enchant

2022-12-20, 11:00 p.m.

(This covers the events of Monday and Tuesday.)

On Monday, Loretta and I went over to Dawn's house for a quilling party. Quilling is a type of papercrafting in which you're curling tiny strips of paper around a tool and then gluing them to a piece of paper (more or less). I hadn't done it before, but I've been interested in it for awhile, and actually bought myself some kits that I haven't opened yet. While out shopping with Loretta a few weeks ago, we saw some Christmas quilling kits on sale at Michael's and got two apiece for ourselves and Dawn, and today was the day.

I successfully managed to finish both of my kits (D&L are still working on their first one), a pointsettia and a Christmas tree. They said I was fast, I can't really explain how I was fast! The hardest part was doing the outlines of the project, which did not involved the actual "quilling" of making circular things. Trying to get the paper to stand up on the edge and stay in place was a pain in the arse, but figuring out how to curl the pieces of paper and then resize them to fit inside the empty spaces worked better.

Pictures can be found here:

Besides that, we had a lovely salad lunch, exchanged gifts (they seemed to like theirs, I got a Hawaiian mask and a peacock picture and that's all my jam), and watched the January 6 hearings that Dawn recorded--yeah, that last one's not an upper. Toward the end of the night, after I'd finished my quills, I started monkeying with a ball of yarn. I'm trying to replicate a scarf I saw at a craft fair (would have bought it for Mom but she was 24 hours late in deciding she wanted it...sigh) and it has a crocheted edge up both sides of the scarf. I wanted to divide what was left of the ball of yarn into two balls and then do one side and then the other instead of trying to guess how much edging I can put on by doing one side, then the other, then switching off, and otherwise being a pain in the neck.

Well, Dawn is one of those people who, if you whip out a half-unraveled ball of yarn in front of her (Ashley too, and Merry), definitely wants to grab it and untangle it and wind it up again. So all THREE of us ended up working on this mess, finding both ends of the yarn, trying to find the middle of the entire piece of yarn, cutting it, and then winding it into two balls. It was quite a production to see!

In other news, Mom says Roger's now worried about eating in restaurants due to covid. I wanted to say, "he hasn't been worried about it for a few years now, what changed here?" Like I'm the only one who'd keep a mask on except for actual food consumption and those two would strip 'em off the second they sit down.

Also, here's the next group of advent calendar creatures. I'm SO behind. I keep switching between projects and it's just nuttery around here.


Tuesday: I finally had an appointment with my therapist...and then I can't do another one for three weeks. I told her about all the shit that's made me mad in the last few weeks. I can't do anything about the times I'm mad at my mom. Or at work for thinking I'm utter crap, since I did that to myself over and over and over again. Or being mad at certain people for being total flakeasses. But also, suffice it to say that now I am completely over caring about Scott, pretty much hate him now, and I want to Say Something And Burn It All Down And Not Be Nice And Kind...or at least point out that yeah, I could tell you didn't want to go to MY show but clearly you wanted to go to someone else's and I know how much I'm worth to you now. Like yes, I know, he finds me repulsive romantically (my therapist said not to say that, I say it was pretty clear), but even as just a friend, I expected better from him than that. More fool me.

Anyway, we talked about being annoyed at friends but not quite wanting to totally cut the cord with them quiet yet and thus dialing it down. She said about one of hers, "I don't like her, but I still love her," and "I don't want to be close but I don't want to detach either." I hear that. She said she was doing what she needs to do, like keeping calls short deliberately. "I'm not ready to say I'm done with you."

I said I'm tired of people flaking and I'm not allowed to be mad about it and she said I have to allow people to not keep their promises and be okay with it...which I'm not. I think a lot of why I'm mad right now is there's various people I'm either mad at all the time (Mom, work) no matter what all the time on some level, a la The Hulk, and now there's also people I'm not allowed to be mad at but am mad at. She said it was because that person didn't have enough spoons for me, which is true. And it's fine to just give up and not invite people if I am not okay with last minute flakery and would rather just skip it. Even she said "what's the point of asking?" with certain people, like her semi-jerky niece (she always has stories of the niece being a jerk to her).

I said at this point I AM ready to say I'm done with Scott--to him, personally--but I know I shouldn't do that because it's not kind and nice and at the very least I may end up in the same show as him again and I probably shouldn't be in open warfare. She said he's no longer worthy of attention at this point, which is certainly true. She said I just want to hurt him like he hurt me--true--and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.

She said I should just go scream in my car or slam a tennis ball into a wall or some other take-out-my-anger-energy-type thing.

Then Mom called...griping at me about picking her up, eating in the hotel room, saying we absolutely HAVE to go to Hoarder House because of her side job, which I am going to have to do for her--I asked can all of that be typed on my laptop or hers and borrow Roger's printer or get a flash drive or something...SIGH. Great, so she goes back to the house she's injured in because I "have" to help. I'm already going to want to kill her. I wanted to NOT BE IN THAT DAMNED HOUSE for one Christmas and it's not like she can or should....argh....of course, she won't listen to me, because nobody does. (Though I will note that a few hours later she sent me a very nice apology text about how she was all in her feelings and not thinking things through about that.)

I will note that my therapist said after what happened for Thanksgiving, "You're not having holidays this year, it's like days of torture." Same old, same old, I said.

After that, I heard from Loretta and Dawn. They were out in Woodland in the morning (what with me having therapy, I couldn't go) and they were going to this pop-up craft shop I'd seen a flier for earlier and wanted to go to on parade day (which didn't happen). I said let me know if it was worth driving over there for, and Loretta said yes, it was, and if I go, she wants to come along. Dawn had to take her husband to the doctor in the afternoon, so I picked Loretta up and we went over there. It was a cool shop, I must say, people having tables of crafts and one guy working the shop was very nice and asked our advice on getting a 15-year-old girl a really awesome fancy coat. I asked if she is weird vs. dresses like a normal teenager and he said she dresses normally, and I said I wouldn't get it for her if she's dedicated to looking normal, as the fancy coat in question was clearly for someone well, like me and she probably wouldn't appreciate/wear it, plus that's a lot of money to waste on someone who won't appreciate a one-of-a-kind garment. There was an awesome selection of fancy clothes I would have bought/wanted except they were $400 and even I have nowhere to wear that. (Also they only took cash or check and I forgot to bring the latter.) So we poked around but didn't buy anything, looked in a few more places--I did buy a sticker with Baby Yoda alternating between eating a frog and drinking rum--and then I took her back home.


And then I went to Enchant. I was so into this that I missed the Holidailies deadline, people:

Enchant: (note: this is located in various cities, those of you not in California may want to see if there's one near you, if there is and you have the money, GO)

Pricing: $36, plus $15 parking (looped in), plus other fees, came to $58 and change. '

Is it worth the price? Actually yes, yes it was. I would not argue with what they charged for this (well, I'd quibble with venue parking). It was THAT well put on a show. I will note that they charged an extra $18 to do ice skating, and I ran into two of my theater castmates John and Virginia while they were skating. John said he thought that price was a bit of a ripoff because they made reservations and still had to wait a half hour, and Virginia said the boots hurt. So make of that what you will.

Clear Bag Policy; Actually announced on website, on email, with the tickets, etc. that they were doing it. Fair.

Finding Out When/Where Events Are: They did have a map on a pole in the venue. There wasn't much in the way of scheduled events--I saw a few stray singers here and there and a band was marching through around 10 p.m.

Indoor/Outdoor: It's at a ballpark. Technically outdoors, but the food areas at the top were all roofed. The upper level had the food vendors--lots of them and some fancier options than ballpark food, restaurant-ish areas and a beer garden. They had a nice selection of shopping--mostly Enchant merchandise every few feet, a Hallmark vendor area (of which I've bought half of that), some jewelry vendors, socks, face painting, caricature, fancy rocks and light-up items. Decent shopping! There was a games area with Jenga, giant chess and cornhole. Santa pics and Mrs. Santa storytime went on on at the far end.

Was there snow? Yes, eventually they turned on the snow machines and snow fell in a few places. It was fun.

I note that it was warmer today than two days ago, and frankly, maybe that venue was somehow warmer in general, because my face wasn't frozen even though at one point I checked the temperature on my phone and it said 42.

Activities: skating rink (MUCH nicer skating ring, going around in a circle, I must say, it almost made me want to except see above), bars/drinks, including a lot of drinks that had a light in the bottom of them, which people were obviously very fond of. Had I not ended up buying a bunch of light-up stuff already, I would have considered that too.

There's one main activity at this and it's a giant maze/scavenger hunt called "The Mischievous Efl" and you're supposed to fill out a passport with stamps when you find eight large toys strewn within the maze. Pony, T-Rex, ballerina, three rubber duckies, a plane, a giant train...The best one was a Rubik's cube with light-up floor that changed colors when you stepped on it. I note that it was even wheelchair-accessible with a ramp, even if the floor didn't seem to react when the wheelchair was on it and the guy got out with his crutches to test it out.

There's also giant presents, giant ornaments, light tunnels, etc. to walk through, and my favorite thing was the giant light-changing tree. I LOVED this tree. Like I seriously sat underneath it for hours (it's hollow, you can walk through, there was seating) and just stared up into its point and took pictures and it frequently turned rainbow colors and it was amazing.

Stuff I bought: a Santa hat with lights in it, a rainbow light up magic wand (then I showed it to my Shiny Unicorns crew and one of them said "WANT IT," and I said, "I will go get another for you!"), a light-up rose. I considered buying the light-up drinks and the light-up gloves (awesome but impractical for daily use) but restrained myself. The guys who sold me the wands were great about making sure they worked and taking mine out for me (and not taking out the second wand since it'll be flying to the East Coast), and I ended up lying around under the tree and pointing the wand at the tree's point and taking pictures of the magic wand magicking everything. It matched, too.

I really enjoyed myself at this. It was beautiful. I think I'd finished looking at all the things within the first hour, and I just stayed and stayed. I got myself this huge junky $15 ice cream cone thing for dinner and ate it while sitting there, watching the rainbow tree turn rainbow colors.

Amount of time I spent there until I felt like I'd seen everything/was too cold: I got there at 4:30 and didn't leave until 10:15 or so. I still didn't feel totally frozen either.
Temperature in my car when I got to it: 46.

Seriously, it was LOVELY. I think it seems pricey, but the whole event was so well done I think it was worth it. If you can afford it and you're in the area of one, GO. I don't particularly want to diss the Cal Expo one, but I feel like that's an event you go to for awhile, and then only go again if they update it. This one was literally, as many people said, magical. You could have just like, buried me under the rainbow tree and I would have been happy. It was a beautiful experience.


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