Pressed for Time

I haven’t had much time to sit and write about all the stuff I’m doing due to the fact that there’s been a lot of stuff to do. Mostly it was “get back into the swing of the day-job” stuff, but some of it has been at least marginally more entertaining — like going to a reunion on my Mom’s side of the the family.

Granted, since my Mom is dead she’s not involved in the planning. Right now rest sounds kind of nice.

Anyway, all this reunionification is made all the happier because my Grandmother is out here in Utah getting to participate. She and her two living sisters (the fourth passed away about three years ago, if memory serves) got their pictures taken in wheelchairs doing the “See no, hear no, speak no evil” poses. Only they got it wrong — it was “speak no, see no, hear no” in the order they were posed. The funny part is that my Grandmother is the hardest of hearing of the bunch (she’s 95, the others are 90 and 83, so she’s got an excuse) and she got to be “hear no evil.” I’m still giggling.

They’re using the 90-year-old’s birthday as an excuse for the reunion, and what it really amounts to is a reunion of the descendants of some great-grandparents I never met. Mostly it was dominated by my 2nd-cousins’ kids and their families — she had like nine kids, and all but maybe one are “gainfully” married with offspring of their own.

We’re getting together again this afternoon, right in the middle of what should be prime cartooning time. And then there’s this church swim party in the evening. And I guess the upshot of all this is that Daddy should be cartooning right now rather than writing this stuff for you folks, because although the buffer is at 21 I need it up around 35 come September 10th… I’ve got three weeks of consecutive travel scheduled, and you people will get all antsy and stuff if you don’t get your Schlock fix.

–Howard

Dearth of updates…

I apologize for not saying anything about Fandemonium in here during the weekend. The hotel internet access was all but unconfigurable, and I gave up after killing a couple of hours on it. The good news is that I spent no money on internet access. The bad news is that I dropped off the planet for four days.

I’ll write more about the actual event in a little while. I don’t have my photos in an uploadable state yet, and I still need to collect my thoughts. Quick summary — it was a wildly entertaining and frenetically disorganized event. Fortunately, as far as the attendees were concerned, it was just fine. The Con staff knocked themselves out, though, making up for disorganization with brute force.

Hey, for a first-time ‘Con in one of Fandom’s backwaters, it was fantastic. Besides, I had a great time.

–Howard

Safe and swift

I made it to Boise, and not ONCE did I try to see how fast my car could go. And no fewer than three state troopers ignored me.

That said, my cruising speed was around 88 for most of the stretches where the posted limit was 75. I left at 5:27am, and arrived at the in-laws’ place at 10:41. I walked through the door just in time to see Patches crying — Grandma (his, not mine) handed him straight across to me, and he settled right down. I got a good 15 minutes of cuddly-Patches before he realized he’d been snookered and that Mom was somewhere in this house full of people. That made the whole trip worthwhile.

Right now everyone is out ice-blocking (it’s like sledding, only you use an ice-block instead of a sled, and you do it on grass) while I stay home and relax with my friend The Internet. Ahh, reunions.

Incidentally, MY Grandma is now well enough to travel, and will be flying to Utah next Monday. Hurray!

–Howard

[edit — 1:53 pm] I just finished a nap, and they’re not back from ice-blocking yet. So far the reunion has been a peaceful, delightful, home-away-from-home experience. And now, to see to the larder…

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