Round Robin: (Wish I Could) Let The Good Times Roll!

In two minutes, my time, it will be Wednesday, February 15th, the posting date of the latest Round Robin Photo Challenge. So let's get rolling!

Laisser le Bon Temps Rouler (Let The Good Times Roll), eh? Oui! C'est formidable! Or it would be, if I could actually do it! But this is February, and that's crunch time for accountants. The deadline I'm under to finish the task I've been killing myself over for the past week (or nine months, taking the long view) is not endlessly movable. I've got to get it done. I've got to sleep, too, and I've done darn little of that recently. So who has time to party?

It wasn't always like this, though. Exactly two years ago, John and I were at Gallifrey One's Fifteen Minutes of Fame. Gallifrey One is the annual Los Angeles convention for fans of the tv series Doctor Who. I used to go every single year with my friends - seven of the first eight years it was held, in fact. We used to have a great time, interviewing actors and writers, and seeing other people we only met once a year. Then my friends moved away, and I was too busy and too broke to go any more. After a while, I stopped even pretending I might be able to make it that year.

But in 2004, I found out at the last minute that Danny Strong (Jonathan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) was going to be at Gallifrey. My favorite Doctor (Sylvester McCoy), the elusive Paul McGann (the Eighth Doctor), and the equally elusive Janet Fielding (Tegan) would also be there, among others. John and I decided, at the last possible second, that we were going! And we had a blast! Except for the part in which we drove around the Burbank area for three hours, trying to find a hotel that wasn't filled with Super Bowl fans, conventioners and equestrians. That wasn't fun at all.


Above you can see (left to right) Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred (Ace), having a good time posing in front of a fan-built TARDIS prop.

Danny Strong turned out to be fun and funny, and there was a weird moment when he inadvertantly reenacted a scene from the Buffy episode "Superstar" by calling me "Karen with a K ." One of the main actors to portray monsters on Buffy was also there, Camden Toy. And so was my old pal Richard Herd. He's been on Quantum Leap, at least two incarnations of Star Trek, SeaQuest DSV and lots of other stuff.

See? I was there too. Here I am having fun with a Dalek, the quintessential Doctor Who monster. No, I didn't take this photo. John did.

But no, I don't get to go to Gallifrey this year, or even Gallifrey One. That's a joke, folks. Gallifrey is the name of the Doctor's home planet, now destroyed as of the 2005 revival of the show.

I did recently get to have a good time on a much smaller scale, though. A week and a half ago, Father Smith of St. Michael and All Angels hosting an outing up Mount Lemmon for the acolytes. Acolytes are the lay people who serve at Mass, carrying candles or the crucifix or the chalice. When I was a kid, such people were mostly called "altar boys." There are probably about 15 or 20 acolytes all together at St. Michael's, but the day trip was early in the afternoon on Super Bowl Sunday. This may explain why the number of people who actually went only filled one rented van.


It was a small but diverse group. We had Father Smith, and Proscovia King, who is in charge of the acolytes. I was there, of course, partly because of this Photo Challenge, partly out of loyalty, and partly because I'm always in favor of good clean Bon Temps, or as I call them, rut-breakers. Rounding out the group were a high school student and two elementary school kids.


Despite the age range, we had a good time together, eating pizza and giant cookies - including a pumpkin nut one! That's the cookie in the front of this picture. We washed it down with Sarsaparilla, while bemoaning the ridiculously high sugar content thereof.

We stopped at Windy Point on the way down, got out and gawked at the rock climbers and the spectacular views. On the drive back down, I even got to tell my two-broken-ankles story to the kids, who were suitably impressed.

It's not Gallifrey, but I guess it will do. Added bonus: Mount Lemmon was the site of my photo shoot for the very first Round Robin challenge. That will always be a happy memory for me.

Karen

*****

Now go see what the other Robins are posting, and maybe even join in yourself!

Round Robins for this Challenge:
as of Wednesday, February 15th, 11:00 PM MST

Carly... Ellipsis...Suddenly Carly Posted!

Karen... Outpost Mâvarin Posted!

Tess... First Digital Photos Posted!

Chris... My Photographic Life

Derek... Through My Eyes and Derek's Picture Of The Day Both Posted!

Betty... My Day My Interests

Julie... Julie's Web Journal Posted!

Sara... Animated Seasons Posted!

Celeste... My Day And Thoughts (AOL and BlogSpot)

Dorn... Through The Eyes Of The Beholder Posted!

Sassy... Sassy's Eye Posted!

Steven... (sometimes) photoblog Posted!

DesLily... Here There and Everywhere BlogSpot and AOL Posted!

Misfirings

Things my brain says at times like this when I'm seriously sleep-deprived:

Nickels are weird because you never know what a nickel will do.

If I listen to it, it won't do it.

I'm not sending enough.

I've been yawning forever.

Helps a little better.

*********
Your Monday Photo Shoot: Show us a picture that represents love to you. Despite the Valentine's Day thing, it doesn't have to be romantic love: It can be love between kids and parents, between siblings, between friends -- heck, it can even be between you and your car, if you want to go that way with it.

Until the wedding photos turn up, I don't have much of anything of John and me together. This is mostly because one or the other of us usually takes the picture! So here are a couple of pictures of my dad instead - then and nowish.

My parents didn't have a very good marriage, for any number of reasons I won't go into here. But I have no doubt that they loved each other, especially early on. I estimate that this photo is from 1949. I've posted it before, but for this occasion I fiddled with the tone values a bit.



The other two pictures are recents ones of Dad and Ruth, which Ruth sent me last year at my request. I wish they were better, but they do clearly show two people who still genuinely love each other after all these years, and enjoy each other's company. They really are a great couple. They've been married for I think thirty years as of this year.

Now I MUST go to bed! Don't try to stop me! I mean it! I'm going! This is me going to bed! Right now! Really!

Karen

A Note from the Office

It's past 3 AM. I've been here at the office for about 11 hours. I probably won't go home before I'm due back at work. I'm pretty sure I can wangle a few hours off for a nap, but first I need to make my deadline - of today.

This is almost certainly my fault. If I'd been more efficient or less obsessive on the spreadsheets that I wrestled with most of the week and weekend, I've have had more time for the other part of the project. Plus I got a late start today because I foolishly read part of a book after I got home late last night, and finished the book after church today. Madness!

I'm finding lots of mistakes, mine and other people's. Foo. But I've got my second wind now. For the moment, anyway. Yes, I know this isn't taking care of myself, but it's crunch time. I'll sleep Monday night, I promise!

It hasn't been all work since I got here this afternoon. The other night owl wanted to chat for a while, and I've been on the phone with Steve, Dad and Ruth and John. Steve is home from the hospital! He's on four medications, which have helped a lot. He swears he will lose the weight, plus he has to go to a sleep clinic. A pacemaker or defib machine may be in his future, but not in the short term. The meds and weight loss may be sufficient without such measures. Steve has the rest of the week off from work, but the doctors think he should ease back into normal activity. Dad gets to go home tomorrow as originally scheduled, in time for Valentine's Day with Ruth.

Photo to follow.

Back to work!

Update: 7:28 AM. I'm due here in half an hour. I won't be late because I won't have gone home - yet. But I'm making serious progress on these stacks of paper, finally!

Update: 11:38 AM. I'm home, after about 19 hours without a break (unless you count that late-night conversation with my co-worker). My numbers are still off, but they're fixable now. I'm going to get some sleep before I tackle them further.


Karen

Briefly

I'm keeping it short tonight, because I worked about 12 hours today it it's well after 2 AM now. Tomorrow I expect to do more of the same - after church, of course.

I thought I was done with the office for today, not because I was caught up with my work, but because 10+ hours seemed like it would probably have to be good enough for one day. That was over an hour after John called to say, "You can come home now." I had wanted to come home earlier, temporarily, because my iPod was in severe need of recharging. But John talked me into staying to keep working. That was around 4 or 5 PM. I actually went home around 10:30 PM.

But once I came home, cooked a healthy dinner, and posted a rather long installment of Heirs of Mâvarin over on Messages, I discovered that I'd left the iPod at work. I told John I was going back for it. Then, as long as I was there, I thought I'd wrestle with my spreadsheet some more. I whittled it down by another 150 lines or so. When the security guard came by on his 2 AM round, I decided it was time to leave.

Ah, the glamorous life of an accountant in February! And at least one other accountant type was still working when I left. She regaled me with stories of her late night encounters with security guards. An AC/DC singalong figured into one of the stories. Heh, heh heh. I like that particular coworker a lot.

No news on Steve today. Many thanks for your comments and prayers, folks. It is much appreciated. Good night!

Steve Lives

I'm trying to hold back a sarcastic remark about the lack of response to my announcement that my only sibling is in the hospital with heart problems. Only Carly left me a comment about it. In fact, hers is the only comment I've had in several days. This really shouldn't surprise me, given Blogger's recent problems and the very light online activity that resulted. You can't comment if you can't get to the blog. You can't even blog if you can't get to a blog.

Really, I shouldn't complain, anyway. When I see a posting about someone's illness, or family member's illness, or a death in the family, I often don't comment myself. I seldom know what to say, especially to someone I don't know all that well. And other people have more severe problems. Just yesterday, some J-Lander I've never heard of lost a husband. I'm sure she needs and deserves your support far more than I do. See, it looks like Steve is going to live. As far as I can tell, anyway.

Information about my brother has been tough to come by. Although my dad flew out to Cleveland last night, he didn't actually get to see him until today. I didn't know that, so I was worried. Unable to reach my dad's cell phone, I called the hospital phone humber he'd given me. The first number connected me to the nutrition department. The second one got me to the switchboard. An automated router got me to patient information. They didn't have any. The woman disavowed all knowledge of a patient named Funk, or the existence of a bed 24A. Okay, I thought. Maybe he's gone home already. So I waited for my dad's call.

Meanwhile, my dad found his way to the same hospital, a regional one with a weird name, part of a chain of hospital facilities. He initially got the same answer I did: no such patient, no such room. It turned out that Steve was moved to another affiliated hospital at 1AM last night. So my 82-year-old dad got back in his rented car, and navigated to a second hard-to-find hospital.

The news is fair to middlin'. No blockage, but the heart muscle is weak. He's got high blood pressure, apnea, and arrhythmia. The doctors say it's all obesity-related. He may get a pacemaker, or an ICD (Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator). We don't really know yet. We don't know much of anything, really. But Dad's extending his stay, because chances are good that Steve will be sent home while his housemate is out of town at a conference. "He deserves to have a family member take him home," Dad said.

I don't talk about Steve much in this blog, and I'm not really comfortable writing even as much about him as I've done here tonight. We live thousands of miles apart, see each other rarely, and don't communicate all that much. But he saw me through some rough times when I was a kid. He's my brother and I love him.

And I can't help but wonder: is this where I'm headed in seven years, if I don't lose weight myself?

Karen

P.S. You probably won't see me around much this weekend. I have a lot of work to do at the office, and this time I can't afford to put it off until Monday. But I'll catch up as best I can, when I can. Good night!

Not Entirely Useless

Weekend Assignment #98: "List the most useless website you have ever visited.

"Extra Credit: Tell us all about why you can't stop going there."

Oh, come on. Who has time for such things? I know, I know: lots of people. But not I.

Listen, I'm an accountant, and this is February. That means I'm struggling to get year-end stuff done at work. On her way out the door tonight, sometime after 6:30 PM, my boss had to tell me to go home. "You look tired," she said. Well, yeah. I am. And you know I'm overscheduled in the rest of my life, too. I keep going on about it, talking about my lack of sleep instead of, you know, sleeping.

So I don't make the rounds of joke sites or discussion sites or fan sites or cool-stuff-done-in-Photoshop sites or flash sites or what-have-you. Yes, I'll glance at Worth1000.com about once every three months, usually because John Scalzi just linked to it again. But that's pretty much it for useless time-wasters. Even if I had the time and interest to browse around, my dial-up would discourage me from going to anything video- or flash-intensive.

That said, there are a few sites I've been to more than once, trying to figure out why they exist, why they look like that, and how anyone, including the site owner, can possibly benefit from them. Mostly these are link farms, created by spider to drive traffic to, well, somewhere, except that I can't see it actually working. I occasionally come across them while Googling Mâvarin-related words. Here's one I found with the name Fayubi in it, as written up in my LiveJournal:

There was also a link farm [in the Google search results] - well, sort of a link farm, except that it doesn't have much by way of links:

The Seer And The Sword Supersite

Fayubi the (and Fabi the Innkeeper) - Fayubi the (born Fabi Stok) Art by Sherlock
First Appearance: Heirs of Mâvarin up and go over to his saddlebags, ...
auctions.dunningadvertising.com/listings/the-seer-and-the-sword.htm

Actually following the link in that one brings me to some truly deightful gibberish:

Fayubi the (and Fabi the Innkeeper) - Fayubi the (born Fabi Stok) Art by Sherlock First Appearance: Heirs of Mâvarin up and go over to his saddlebags, where his was. He began to pack his gear as if nothing.

not to mention

Strange Author Encounters - I'm still writing the 4th THE book, PLAY. Should hit the 100 page mark today if I get busy writing. A week ago I had a great time at an annual children's writing conference in Los Angeles.

and

The Brahan - His Prophecies - He applied to a local female , who informed him that he "would die by the " (le bas a chlaidheamh). This appeared to be improbable in the case of such an old man, who had taken part in so.

and


Fish --spotted spanish mackerel - CuttleFish --- Red-Snapper --- Emperor --- Moon Tail --- -Fish --- -Fish --- King-Fish --- Trigger-Fish --- Reef-Cod Squid --- Chilean Sea Bass --- Red Fin Bream --- Sea-Crab.

Okay, guys. I'm sure that's all really helpful to Victoria Hanley fans - especially since none of these snippets have live links!

Also, according to this page, Victoria Hanley is the author of the book "The and the."

I just went back to look at the site again. The Fayubi references are gone. The fish list is still there, though.

Whatever, guys. You just ceased to amuse me.

There are also a couple of pages I've personally posted that couldn't possibly be particularly useful to anyone. (Is that enough alliteration for you?) One was an explanation why having magic in my books doesn't make them anti-Christian. This is hardly a burning issue, not until I have books to be burned, that is. At least one person saw it, though, via a search for "immoral magic." The other is the tribute page to my mom. I thought nobody but me and my brother Steve would ever see that page, but I didn't figure on people researching genealogy or Googling "Dr. Ruth" (my mom was Dr. Ruth Anne Johnson). Result: that page get more hits than any other mavarin.com page outside the St. Michael's subdomain. It's also become a useful place to store and disseminate info on my mom and other family members as I learn more family history.

*******

My brother is in the hospital. Congestive heart failure is suspected, but I don't know who came up with that. I'm waiting to hear more from my Dad, who flew to Cleveland this afternoon/evening.

Steve is only a month shy of 56 years old. He has no health insurance.

If you believe in prayer, throw one in for Steve-O, will you? Thanks.

Karen

Round Robin Reminder: Good Times a-Comin'!

Heads up, people! We're just under a week out from our next Round Robin Photo Challenge. The topic, courtesy of Tess of "First Digital Photos," is Laisser le Bon Temps Rouler or, in English, Let The Good Times Roll. And there goes that song by the Cars in my head again!

I think we all know to have fun, don't we? We need to have fun. But we don't all do it the same way. What is your favorite way to let the good times roll? Are you a party girl, or is a low-key get-together with family or friends more your style? Have you been to Mardi Gras? Did you go someplace special to usher in the New Year? Are you a roller coaster addict? A jazz fan? A sports nut? Do you head off to the casino for a good time, or steal away to Jamaica with that special someone? Or is hanging out with your kids more fun than anything else you do?

Show us how you Laisser le Bon Temps Rouler, in any language. Take your pictures or dig through your archives, and don't forget to RSVP. The date to post your pictures is Wednesday, February 15th, any time between midnight Tuesday night and midnight Thursday morning. Please try not to post early, because it messes up the blog jogging that's half the fun of the Round Robin game.

Roll on!

Karen