I don't suffer from insanity,

As usual, our good friend Shaun came over from Arizona and spent two fun weeks with us. We went to Scarborough on Memorial Day. We ate out at Razoos (say Zaideco Dancer!), and watched LOTS and LOTS of Anime:

Chobits
Gankotsuou
Bubblegum Crisis 2040
Death Note
Tenchi Muyo! Ryo Ohki
El-Hazard
Noir
X (series)
Ergo Proxy (just the first disk)

Luckily, for A-Kon itself, we scored passes from my cousin Conrad (yay!), so we got in free. It's the only way to go, that's for sure!

On Wednesday afternoon, I started tai chi with Anne. We're just doing the very basic, slow process of learning each form/stance, but wow. Afterwards my knees are so shaky and I can feel the pull in my leg muscles. I don't remember what the name of the stance is, but Matt calls it the horse stance from his kung fu days. That's the basic, first stance and we hold that position for a long time, plus we assume it before learning any of the other stances. Forms. I dunno what they're called. I'm still learning! Anyway, the coolest part is that we've only done it twice now (we're planning on every Monday and Wednesday), but my knees also already feel more... fluid. I dunno. But they seem to move more smoothly. This will be really good for me! Heck, any exercise would be good for me. Heh.

Thursday evening had me back at Hob's for our supers game, and although it was mostly combat this time, I still had fun. Friday evening I chilled with Matt, played WoW, watched some more Rahxephon. We're about half-way through. We're also watching Samurai Champloo via Netflix, so we're watching Rahxephon between Netflix installments, although next up from Netflix is the conclusion to Generator Gawl.

Saturday morning we got rained out of our SASS event, so I went to the zoo with my sister annawick and Lex. Yes, in the rain. It was a blast. Annie had Lex all rigged out - rain slicker that fit him just right and knee high rubber boots. And let me tell you, Lex definitely took advantage of his rain gear. He stomped in just about every puddle he saw. It was awesome.

One of the cool things about the rain though was that because it was such a gentle, cool rain, all the animal were out. Especially a lot of the predators. In the Texas critter area, I got to see the bobcat, the cougar, the jaguar, and the coyote all up close and personal.

Heh. The cougar was tracking all the children as they came in, literally licking her lips, so at one point she and I got into a staring contest. Finally, her whiskers twitched, we stared a little more, and then she hissed at me and went to lay down behind a bush where she could watch and not be watched. Heh.

The jaguar was pacing along his fence eyeing the coyote, who totally ignored the jaguar. Heck, the coyote even did a long, lazy stretch and looked right at the jaguar. It made me laugh.

Just as we were heading out, I got a call from Mom, saying she'd meet us at Annie's house, so we headed there. We tried to keep Lex awake so he could get some time with his Granny when we got to Annie's, but at one point when we were literally like three miles away we turned our attention to the road and when we looked back, he was completely passed out and would not wake up. Whoops.

I wasn't able to stay long and visit as I had a dinner appointment that Matt made with friends, so I took off relatively soon after arriving at Annie's house. I hurried back to Lewisville, and then we had dinner with our friends Kevin and sandrayln in Denton. After dinner the four of us met up with Bob and narkeys and went to see Fantastic Four, which I enjoyed.

Sunday presented me with my usual mellow morning. I had church in the afternoon, and the lesson I taught was on Matthew 25 (I teach the 16/17 year olds now). Good stuff. After church, I headed up to Sanger and spent some time with Dad on Father's Day. I spent some time with Mom too, of course, but she had errands to run so I sat and chatted with Dad about stuff going on in his life. My parents are awesome.

On a totally unrelated topic, I also recently figured out why it's so hard for me to get started on a sewing project. I hate transferring the pattern and cutting the fabric. The sewing part, I'm cool with. But the prep bores me. I want to wave a wand and poof have prepped fabric for me to just work on. Ah, well. I know it's never going to happen like that. So, now I just need to get to work on my gown. Step 1 transfer the pattern, Step 2 cut the fabric. I can do it! Because after I finish this regency gown, I want to start on something from the 1880s. Well, after I do the cap to go with the regency. Heh. That'll be quick and easy, though.

Ok. Done for now!

Lots of gaming this weekend, plus the beginning of the anime craziness. ^_^

The Thursday game is going great. I'm really enjoying the setting and arioch1970 is doing an excellent job of telling the story. Our Friday GURPS Fantasy/Conan is really coming along, too. We're finally getting our grasp of the GURPS rules again, so combat should flow more smoothly each time. I remember really liking GURPS from way back when, so it's nice to rediscover why I liked it so much.

Saturday was really busy in spite of the Saturday game at my brother's being canceled. Matt and I got up early-ish and took care of some banking stuff (which took forever), then I went to my sister's and picked up a bodice and visited with spar30 for a while. He's working on lorica segmentata, which Matt has wanted to make for quite some time, heh. So I envision some evenings spent over at Annie's place. Fun, fun! ^_^ Matt gets to play with metal, I get to play with cloth. And Lex. Of course. :D

Anyway, after hanging out there for a bit, I ran to Love Field and picked our friend Shaun up. Shaun stays at our place every year for the past oh, I dunno. Six years now? He comes over every year during A-Kon and we watch anime all week. Heh. I first met him in the early days of playing Dark Age of Camelot (an MMORPG), and we've been friends ever since. So I'm taking half-days this week and watching anime with my friends. Fun! Anyway, we started the anime fest with Full Metal Alchemist and watched like the first five disks on Saturday, and the next several on Sunday afternoon.

Sunday we braved the rain and went to Scarborough. I had a ton of fun with the hubby, my sister, the Lex, and Shaun in spite of the rain. We were wet, muddy, and tired by the time we got home, but I think fun was had by all. It was awesome to hear Lex sing the Dark Side March, heh.

And Monday had me back at work, but only half days all week. Whee!

It's been like three weeks since my last update and I was going to lock this because it's so boring, but then just decided to not. Beh. There weren't a lot of changes, so I just didn't post. Life is good. Faire season is over, so my Saturdays will be open again for other social-type things, as well as hobbies and chores, etc. Heh.

With A-Kon looming, I have my friend Shaun over for his annual visit. I picked him up on Friday after a comedy of errors with us missing each other like some Chaplin movie. After a quick very late lunch, we went out to McKinney and picked up a fridge, then a late dinner at IHOP. I need to remember to stick to breakfasts there. The fish and chips were very, very "meh."

Saturday was great. Matt and I went to a dealership to look at a truck for his mother, after which we went to Glen & Jeanette's house for a surprise birthday game for Glen. We finally concluded our Phlan game fighting a 400+ year old demon-possessed bronze dragon, which Shaun played. It was quite the finale! Since my little sorcerer couldn't land a spell on the critter to save her life, she stopped time and buffed the party a lot. And go go creative use of Forcecage! So, next up for Matt will be AGOT. I'm really looking forward to that.

So far, the anime I've watched while Shaun has been here: Deeper Samurai Kyo, Ghost in the Shell (which I'd never seen before and really enjoyed), and Peace Maker. And still, my all time favorite is Rurouni Kenshin. Next up, more Ghost in the Shell, and um... I forget the name of the other one.

The social game has been postponed, and postponed again. I'm not especially sad about it, although as always once there I have fun. I have four other games aside from the social one that are always waiting to be scheduled, with people I know better. Two D&D games, my Thursday group (which I've missed like three weeks in a row! :-/ I'll be back next week for sure, though!), and Warhammer RPG. Soon one of the D&D games will go away when the DM moves to go to law school, which is sad but it'll be nice to be down to three games, I think.

In WoW, things are moving along nicely in our cobbled-together group. We're in our early 40s and moving forward. Kevin wants to check out the Horde side, too, so maybe one night a week we'll try that out. Matt rolled a tauren warrior named Charro, and I ran a lil orc shaman out to do all our newbie quests together. It's neat seeing everything with new eyes. I have too many level 30 to 45 Alliance alts, heh.

So, yeah. As usual, nothing odd or exciting to report. Although having a functioning full size refrigerator is awesome. Heh. Thanks, fuzake!

I had an awesome week, although each day was a repeat of the first, more or less, heh. I did a lot of hanging out with friends and watching anime. So, this year we watched:

Witch Hunter Robin
Trigun

While Trigun was cool, I liked Witch Hunter Robin a lot better. I think because it was more serious, although now I understand why so many people dress up like Vash at A-kon. He was really cool. Wolfwood, too (although his costume would be too easy to really count).

Also, this week while our guests were over, Matt renewed our SWG accounts (again). He also respec'ed my Master Dancer/Master Musician/Master Entertainer/Master Image Designer who was a whopping Combat Level 1 to a Master Rifleman/Master Combat Medic and is now Combat Level 80. I amuse myself by keeping my Expert Hairstylist tag under my name, though.

Matt, friends and co-workers all want to be Imperials, but my big brother, who is on the same server, is a Colonel in the Rebellion. Urg. So, I can either kill my friends and hubby, or kill my brother. What a mess. Anyway, Matt already has his full suit of biker scout armor, and my other friends are well on their way to getting their faction armor, too.

Saturday was A-Kon itself (whee!), where I got to hang out with finari (who came over quite a bit this past week) and annawick. There were lots of good costumes, even more mediocre costumes, and an overwhelming number of just plain bad costumes, but as always, it proved to be a prime people-watching day. ^_^ I think next year I will actually go watch the cosplay, though. According to my sister, that is a hoot, so I'll give it a go. Guess I better find out more about that...

After wrangling two free passes, I spent some money in the dealers' room and got Matt his next installment of Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue, issues 13 through 17, plus some hair sticks and earrings for me. I also enviously eyed some absolutely beautiful wedding kimonos that I absolutely could not afford. At about 7pm we headed out to a small party at Anne/Bob/Darryl/John's house, where a super-happy surprise was there for me in the form of a long-missed friend, which totally made my week. Wheeee!!

Sunday was nice and mellow. I had lunch at the parents' house, saw my youngest brother who came, too, then went back home to hang out and watch the last bit of Trigun that we could cram into our soon to be over friend and anime fun.

This morning I took Shaun and Dan back to the airport at the crack of dawn, and then went in to my normal Monday work routine. Matt just took Patrick to the airport, so tonight I will clean up a bit and then just relax. No more social obligations until Thursday.

Mmm. Nice.