More Buffy, HP Birthday, Hi-Kid, Computer, Life

More Buffy

(Follow-up to my Buffy post)

I’ve now read through Season 8 and (what’s been released of) Season 9 of the comics (though… I read S9 first and want to go back and re-read now that I’ve finished S8) and if you are a Buffy fan, I’d recommend them. They’re totally outlandish but it’s outlandish in a quirky, fun, comic-y way. I am glad I was warned it was crazy, for sure, but I felt like they stayed true to the spirit of the show and I really enjoyed them.

Plus, the artwork is so great – they resemble the actors without being portraits of them, and some of the panels are downright beautiful. (The “I miss my mom” dusk-sunset page!)

I’ve also been reaaaally half-assedly watching Angel, and ye gods. I cannot get into it. I am still set on giving it a chance (mostly to get to the bits with Spike) but it is pretty tortuous. I am just not that big of a fan of Angel, I guess?

My birthday

I turned 27 on June 21 and I had a Harry Potter-themed birthday party! My mom came as Molly Weasley, my dad as Neville Longbottom, my brother as Sirius Black, Daniel’s mom as Pomona Sprout, her man-friend as Hagrid, and Daniel was Harry Potter, I was Luna Lovegood, and Wesley was Dobby. Whew! There were several other guests that came as Muggles. I made a Platform 9 3/4 “brick wall” out of a sheet to hang over the door – it was a big hit. All the food was HP-themed as well; I even made pumpkin juice! I think the butterbeer was the big winner though – cream soda + butterscotch schnapps. YUM!

Hi-Kid

Daniel’s grandpa, whom we called “Hi-Kid,” passed away on June 20.

My favorite Hi-Kid story revolves around him discovering I did web development, and then telling me he had Adobe CS already and wasn’t sure if he should upgrade to CS2 since what he was doing with Photoshop seemed to work fine for him, and could I tell him if it was worth the extra cost? I remember being appalled that someone in their eighties even knew what Photoshop was, let alone used it and had an opinion about upgrading it.

Another favorite memory involves the first time I had dinner at Nana and Hi-Kid’s house, and Hi-Kid was serving mashed potatoes. I asked for one scoop, and he gave me that plus two more. I soon came to find out this was a thing, and the chronic over-purchasing and over-serving of food is sort of a running joke. This was further underscored during Hi-Kid’s memorial service when the family purchased WAY too many boxes of cookies for guests to eat and were trying to pawn them off on guests.

He was an incredibly sharp, witty man and I’m a better person for having known him. We’ll miss him a lot.

Computer

We’ve had some crazy lightning storms recently, and I am a dunce and did not think to unplug my computer during a particularly flashy one, and the next morning my computer wouldn’t turn on and the monitor smelled like burning. We took it in, it was diagnosed with a burnt-out power supply and we had to wait for a special one to come in the mail (I have a tiny computer and it needed a tiny power supply) and get installed. TWO WEEKS LATER, I have my computer back and am able to resume my normal computery activities. We do have a tiny netbook and a broken-but-repaired iPod Touch that got us by in the meantime, but man. I do not want to do that again.

Life

August is going to be a busy month for us! My brother is getting married on the 18th, and then we have friends coming to stay with us, and then my cousin is getting married near Boise, ID on September 1st so we’ll take a trip down there.

Wesley and his cousin were in the 4th of July baby parade again this year. Riley has one of those motorized kid cars, except it’s a John Deere tractor, so he drove and pulled Wesley behind in the trailer. They had loads of fun.

My mom, Wesley, and I went cherry picking at my grandparents’ house. I am making a weird face but we had a good time:

My dad took Wesley on a (low speed! very safe!) ride on his ATV. Wesley calls it a motorcycle (pronounced “moley-lyco”) and was THRILLED he got to wear a moley-lyco helmet.

My mom had gallbladder surgery recently (non-emergency, thankfully) and is recovering well. I was nervous when my dad didn’t text me for a few hours but then again I forgot to ask how long the surgery would take.
She’s also organizing a local Big Latch On event that I’m helping with. Should be fun! If you’re a breastfeeding mom see if there’s one near you – you can help break the record of the most women breastfeeding simultaneously.

I’m still working part-time, three days a week, and Wesley still cries at every daycare dropoff. Thank goodness it’s only once a week!

Our county fair is coming up later this month and I am ridiculously excited about it. I used to make all my summer money at the fair when I was younger (you get $3 for a blue ribbon!) and I want to enter some embroidery stuff this year. I have this Badbird Beaver pattern already and I’m dying to use it – I really want to make it sort of oversized and prettily colorful, and then maybe the judges will be overcome with love for my efforts and I will get a purple Grand Champion ribbon for it. A girl can dream.

That about brings us up to date, I think. What have you been up to?

File Under: Family, General, Media, Photos

Tagged: No tags