Words Written: “En Garde”: 1162

Joss Whedon rules.

Today we watched the first two discs of “Firefly”—8 out of 15 eps, counting the first ep as 2. Whew. We didn’t intend to, entirely, but see, it happened like this…

Cat called Thursday and asked if she could spent the weekend, starting that night. She had Friday off and wanted to run errands up here, and then she could carpool with us to Darach Twelfth Night on Friday evening, and Caidan Twelfth Night on Saturday. All good plans, and we’ve been having a lot of fun. (Ask us someday to sing “Danger Hair”, the theme song to a never-to-be-seen cartoon we created…) However, The Plague has hit much of our SCAdian friends, and Cat seems to have developed a mild version of it. She did get up for church today, but came home wanting to do nothing more than lie on the sofa and veg. Well, she hasn’t seen the unaired eps of “Firefly”, and we’d seen only one ep, so it made sense to start plowing through them.

First, though, I had to start the latest story that Teresa and I are collaborating on. I’d promised it to her by Saturday, and was feeling a bit guilty. I’d made notes, but couldn’t figure out exactly how/where to start it. (We’d divided it into four sections, and I’m writing the first and third. Each will be a 1000-–1500 words to fit the anthology guidelines.) I knew I had to write it before we sat down to watch, so she’d have it early enough today.

It wasn’t easy, but I did it. It’s rough, but it’s done. (I hear Kris and Dean in my head right now…) So at about 3:45 p.m., we sat down and started watching.

We finished at about 10:30 p.m. That included a break to pick up Chinese food, and the usual potty breaks and the like.

Wow, what a great show. Granted, we could line up most of the characters with their “Buffy” and/or “Angel” counterparts, but it’s gripping, funny, action-packed…well, everything you’d expect from Joss the God of TV Whedon.

Cat’s crashing here tonight, of course, and not going to work tomorrow, so I imagine will glut ourselves on the rest of the eps. Hurrah!

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I’m sorry I disappeared for a few days. I plead grumpiness and stress. I’ve been working on Black Oak stuff, and trying to beat my In Box into submission (not entirely succeeding, but making a valiant effort), and that sort of thing. Friday Cat was here, although she was out running errands most of the day. Friday evening was, as mentioned, Darach Twelfth Night, which was rather small, but nonetheless fun. I didn’t want to wear garb, but I got over it.

We received some lovely gifts, including veil pins from Eilidh, Aurora Chorus's Solstice! CD from Morgana & Brian (our mutal friend Gayle is in the chorus, and Morgana knew I was planning to buy the CD…), a landscaping book from Elyramere & Sean, a bag full of wonderful little gifties from Caterine & Emrys…

Yesterday was Caidan Twelfth Night, out in Claremont. Now, we’ve been having rain since, mostly, forever, with the scattered dry and sunny day. Luckily our house is (a) raised off the ground (providing that handy crawl space for Ken to fix the heater at 10:30 at night) and (b) has a pretty new roof that we have determined is completely water-tight. But it makes various travel more fun. Coming home from the event wasn’t fun, but we survived.

The event itself was okay. I don’t have a whole lot of interest in the current King and Queen, so even though I’m a Court junkie, I didn’t stay in there much. Part of the problem was that Court was in a chapel, and the rest of the event was in another building, and it was raining on and off, so one tended to stay in one place or another. Somehow Ken and I were tagged to handle Darach’s presentation, which was largesse for Her Majesty of the Midrealm at Estrella. (Groups and guilds were asked to pick a Kingdom and make largesse, and since Drachenwald wasn’t coming…) That went fine, and it was incredible to see how much we’d put together.

We spent most of our time seeing friends we hadn’t seen in a few months. We perused the merchants, but most were ones that come to almost every event, so we didn’t feel the need to buy anything. In mid-afternoon, we headed over to Caterine and Emrys’s, who were having an open house for anyone not going to the feast. The three of us ended up being the only ones who went, but we had a wonderful afternoon and evening, talking, eating pizza, laughing, etc.

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In other small news tidbits:

I received my comp copies of Best Women’s Erotica 2005—hurrah!

Hm. I’ve forgotten whatever other tidbits I was going to mention.

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Tomorrow, even with the “Firefly” marathon, I must get back to AETW. I’ve got three or four chapters yet to read through, and then it’s time to forge ahead. I know what happens next; just need to be clear on where the characters are emotionally before I dive in again. And there are a few antho stories I need to work on.

I also need to finish boxing up the holiday decorations, mail presents, finish and mail the holiday newsletter, write thank-you notes, catch up on e-mail, help Ken put empty boxes in the attic (did I mention the stairs are finally in?! Hurrah!), repot some herbs (well, when it stops raining, that is), and a whole host of other small things. And we have two, possibly three, Styx concerts at the end of the week.

And it’ll all get done, eventually. Just some focus and dedication…

I hope everyone’s New Year is shaping up well!

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Currently Reading: Little Green Men, Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Realms of Fantasy, February 2005

Lately Listened To: torrential rain

Recently Watched: “Firefly”, many episodes