Category: All good things

Hej!

Hej alla! Varför förmiddag mig handstil i svensk? Därför att jag kan! Och därför att I-förmiddagen lära det språket lite och det har varit rolig.

I’m pretty sure the translator I used butchered what I said there, but that’s ok. So wtf did I say? “Hi everyone! Why am I writing in Swedish? Because I can! I am learning the language and it is fun.” 🙂 Or something. I met someone in Sweden who is teaching me a few words here and there (and is very patient with my horrible pronunciations.) It’s a fun language though! I heart the interwebs!

Other than that I don’t have a whole lot to report. Saw Batman last weekend and loved the ever-loving hell out of it. Heath Ledger’s performance was disturbingly awesome and Christian Bale is just amazing. Thing about him is, I don’t believe he’ll be stuck with a stereotype for playing a superhero in a blockbuster film. He already has an impressive catalogue of quirky movies to his credit (American Psycho, Little Women, Swing Kids, Equilibrium to name a few) and he’ll go on to more like that. He’s doing the new Terminator movie which, yeah, another blockbuster type but man does it look bad-ass.

Anyway, so yeah, saw Batman. What else…. Oh! Got asked to host the episode 3 commentary for the second season of BBtL. Should be fun! And my co-writer and I have finished writing our scenes for the first episode of Angel Between the Lines and all that’s left is to put our halves together and make it flow, do some tweaking, and then hand our baby in. Over a month ahead of the deadline too 🙂 yay us!

Speaking of writing, I seem to have lost the plot a bit on my CherryPop story. And by that I mean, I haven’t wriiten anything in a month apart from one ficlet sequel. I need to focus on that. Watching all these Twitter updates from people at Comic-Con this weekend meeting their favourite authors and thinking that I would love to be someone’s favourite author someday. Won’t happen though if I don’t kick myself in the ass and get into it. I will find a way though.

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Where’s Melia?

I’ll skip all of the ‘I know, I haven’t blogged in a while and here’s why’ crap. I don’t have a really good reason other than general busy-ness and lack of a desire to post to this one. I haven’t been Ficleting either which sort of breaks my heart a little. So I’ve sworn to get back to it, and posted another little chapter in the life of CherryPop. It might re-awaken my desire to write again. It’s been slacking.

I’ve been working a big project at work, sort of Movie Madness redux, this time with music. I’ve been on my own as far as figuring out how to power this thing and make it fun and I don’t think I’ve done too badly. It’s drawing over 5-600 pageviews a day so far. Yay! So that’s taken up a lot of time.

Between movies I must see, BBQs, family visiting, and a new addiction to Second Life, Blogging’s just been on the back burner. But no more! I’m looking forward to jumping back in on all of the blogs. So this is a sort of “I’m back” post. More will be coming, for I must review Dr. Horrible and Batman 🙂

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Happy birthday Kidlet!

Except I guess you’re not such a kidlet anymore. Seventeen. The big 1-7. You are now allowed into R-rated movies without adult supervision. Congratulations! 🙂

Man. I can’t believe I have a 17 year-old daughter. Seems like yesterday that you were parading around in pigtails and your Disney princess jammies. I remember your first steps when you awkwardly toddled from one side of your playpen to the other. I love the funny way tiny kids walk, and yours was no exception. It was freaking adorable.

I remember how you were a very good little sleeper. No fussy nights for you. But you would refuse to take naps when all the other kids at daycare did. So you were up all day, and in bed by 7:30pm. Which is probably why you slept all night. Thanks for that 🙂

I remember when you FINALLY learned to ride a bike. Or when you and Grammy would be snuggled up watching telly. I learned to love Rugrats because you loved it so much. I just couldn’t do the Barney thing though, sorry. I remember you having a blast when you figured out how to stand on your head. Couldn’t keep you off it 🙂 Then you started school and loved it so much. New friends (some you still have!) and so many things to learn. I loved seeing you become a voracious reader – moreso than I ever was, and I’m pretty voracious.

We’ve had some rough times and some fun times. Lots of changes. Lots of sad stuff.  But lots of the good too. And for me, there is nothing more fun than hanging out with you and just being silly. I’m glad we still do that. I’m glad you still give me hugs and that I can tell you “I Love You” every single day.

You’re a phenomenal person kiddo. I love you very much, and I hope you had a happy birthday.

Love,
Mom

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Back in the saddle

Ok, back now. Calmer. I probably can’t/shouldn’t talk about it online much but the long and short of it is the paper went through some layoffs this past week, including 2 single moms, a guy who had just gotten married, and my very good friend. Two of the layoffs happened in the Online department, so yeah, close to home. And as anyone who’s been through stuff like this can attest, there’s a lot of weird feelings. Fear, guilt, anger to name three. Mostly fear and guilt though. Fear because it happened so damn fast and unexpectedly – in 15 minutes, the course of those four people’s lives were dramatcially changed. And guilt because you got “lucky” and were allowed to stay and you’re relieved it’s not you but then you feel like you shouldn’t be feeling relieved when people you know got hurt.

It’s very bizarre and I hope to never go through it again.

Knock on wood.

I thought all week long about what it would have been like if I had been let go too. If suddenly, the job I took a chance on 4 years ago when I left another job I loved to take this on and found I loved this one even more, it was taken away from me through no fault of my own. Would I land on my feet? Would I fall into depression as I’m prone to do. How could I provide for Shannon? How could I find another job as good and as great in this tiny market?

I’ve been through upheaval many times. Moved a lot growing up, rough, bitter divorce, death, and none of those were my choice, and I came out the other side just fine. Eventually. Even when it was my choice, such as when I upped sticks and moved to England everything worked out.

I think the same will hold true for my friend and for the others. It hurts. It will hurt. But things will work out. I think one thing my friend has already discovered is how many people cared about her and will miss her and would do what they can to help her. That’s a good feeling.

There’s not much more I can say about the layoffs. I don’t feel any safer, but all I can do is my job and hope for the best. Morale has taken a hit and everyone is shellshocked, but I’m hoping we can bounce back. I think we can, anyway. Still have a paper to put out.

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Goodnight Laceygirl

My sister called me to let me know that Lacey died tonight. I don’t know what to write. I’m sad. I should probably explain who Lacey is, was, rather. She’s a cat. But she’s more than that. We took her in when I was still in high school, and she was maybe a year or so old. She had been a stray so we’ll never really know her exact age.

But she became part of the family. We named her Lacey because Dad was a big Cagney & Lacey fan back then and it seemed to fit the little grey furball. Mom was always her favourite though. She was the only one Lacey would cuddle up with. She grew up an indoor kitty at our place in Monterey, and then moved with us to Nebraska. She tolerated the dog (named, well, Cagney. Hey, I didn’t name them) and ruled the house.

When Mom passed away, my sister Kelly took her in and Lacey went with Kelly back to California after she graduated from UNL. She tagged along when Kelly moved to London, and then back to California when she came home, and she was there with Kelly when she drove across the country to D.C. with all her stuff and Lacey.

We were (and still are really) always impressed by Lacey’s longevity and good health. But tonight she just… I don’t know, gave out. My sister was home, and was holding Lacey when she closed her eyes for the last time and I can hardly see the keyboard to write this. Poor Kelly 🙁 She’s very upset. I mean, it was kind of expected. Lacey hasn’t been doing well the past couple of months, but it’s still… Well I’m going to stop there. I’m just glad Lacey had such a long life, surrounded by people who loved her even when she was horking up hairballs and tearing around the house in the middle of the night for no reason whatsoever. She was an awesome kitty.

I found a few pix of her. My scanner’s out of commission atm, so I had to take pix of the pix. Anyway, Love you Laceygirl.

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