Overall this half season has been good but not Great. I have enjoyed that nods to the previous incarnations of the Doctor. There has been great affection to the previous incarnations of the Doctor and it is nice for them to re-enforce that 8 is canonical.

I enjoyed the Name of the Doctor and thought that, over all they played fair with it. It did bring together all the threads starting with the Christmas episode and the rest of the season along with the previous part of the season. Moffat seems to like doing the making each episode important at the end and has done so with varying success.

I am looking forward to the next episode a lot.

Spoilers behind the cut and in the comments since I am assuming that not everyone has seen this episode yet.

So Clara was genetically encoded on a leaf? I am really fuzzy about that. That she would sacrifice herself to save the Doctor I don’t have a problem with that had been set up back in the Snowmen. I also would have perfectly happy for her to have been a normal human being that did something extraordinary rather than having been bred for the role.

It was nice to see Richard E. Grant again as the Great Intelligence. And the idea of the “body” being a timey whimey kind of thing didn’t bother me at all. The Doctor is not his body but his deeds and actions.

It was nice to see Alex Kingston as River even if she is only the echo from the library. I had sort of forgotten that she “died” in Forest of the Dead. So we saw her end before her beginning.

And we still don’t know his name but I expected that from the moment I heard the title of the episode.

In the interest of Full Dislosure, I am a big John Hurt fan and have been for a very long time. So I heard the voice and my brain went “wait a minute I know that voice” but the reveal had me in one of my rare squees. It’s F’ng John Hurt as the Doctor. I haven’t been this excited since it was revealed that Derek Jacobi, another actor I am a big fan of, was the Master. My concern is that this will be 15 minutes and then we are back to the status quo or a new (old) Doctor. I honestly don’t care what the story is, I know that Mr. Hurt will act rings around all other comers unless Jacobi show up and then it would be an acting throw down (anyone else remember I, Claudius?).

So overall, enjoyed it and looking forward to the anniversary episode. And if this brings John Hurt to the SDCC, all the better.

I am grateful that Doctor Who is still going.

Just to make some of you feel much older, Ariel is now 21 going on 22. I know there are a number of people who remember her birth announcement in CBG.

We have some errands to run before we go. I have to finish the packing for the short trip and make sure that the cats are set up for food and water. It will all be fine but I have quite a list of things to do.

Next week is getting ready for Phoenix Comic Con. Including making a couple of new Doctors and possibly some Phluzzies to sell. But that is next week. This weekend is first.

I am grateful that Ariel is graduating.

I cleared off the couch and am in the middle of washing the throws that we use in the winter to keep our feet and legs warm along with the cats. If it doesn’t rain, I can dry everything outside I think.

I now need to discover where the gremlins put my good sunglasses. I know they are in the house but not much more than that. I have a vague recollection of seeing them and saying that’s not a good place for them to be but I can’t reconstruct where that was in my head. So I continue to search for them.

Tomorrow we head for Connecticut for Ariel’s undergraduate graduation. There are a couple of things we are going to attend before the actual graduation. I honestly don’t remember so many things attached to my undergraduate graduation but that was a long time ago. I have clearer memories of my MFA graduation.

Next week we are Phoenix Comic Con. Peter’s table is 2416. Caroline and I will be there with him. Also we will be participating in the Puppet Slam on Friday Night. Yes, we will be doing Lord of Time probably for the last time. Now I have to figure out how to top that at the next Dragon*Con.

Elementary took a page from “The Adventure of the Dying Detective” and did a good job of it. I didn’t see it coming until the end. Overall not too many quibbles with the season. But more on that in my end of the season wrap up. I will say I am looking forward to next season.

I am grateful for anything I get done today.

I went in for a Matinee. It was a Wednesday School matinee which can be rather trying because you are presenting culture to a group that is just glad to be out of class especially so close to Summer vacation. The sound operator came in and said, “I didn’t expect to see you here today with Jim Henson being dead and all.” We didn’t get along very well after I had to fill a report with management about some of their off the book activities that were interfering with the show. They felt that I ratted them out. That is when I first heard about Jim Henson’s passing. It was confirmed by a couple of actors who checked in with me to see how I was doing. I knew then it was true. I went to the stage and sat at my station with tears streaming down my face. I got through the show even though the stage manager was willing to let me go.

I heard later from those in the know what happened that day. It was a simple case of 24 hours. If he had gotten medical attention 24 hours earlier, there is a good chance he would still be around. But nothing is absolute and some one my family admired greatly shuffled off this mortal coil.

I went to the memorial service which was a celebration of life and possibility. There were tears but I was comforted by total strangers as I comforted total strangers. We were there because we loved Jim and we wanted to spend some time with others who understand what we were going through.

Jim Henson has been an influence on my life. I make no bones about that. I have tried to continue his mission of bring puppetry to the people in my small way. But I will always remember that day that I found out.

I am grateful that Jim Henson has been such an influence in my life.

I think we all do little rituals in our lives without even realizing it. Patterns of behavior which are repeated through out our lives. Then there are the social rituals that we take part in as part of the group.

I think a good example of this is conventions. Everyone seems to have their little rituals of things they do before the convention. Then there are the things that we do every time we go to X convention. Dragon*Con participants seem to have a lot of rituals that they participate in at the convention. I know people who delay their leaving because they want to go to Peter’s panel, which is the last one on the Star Trek track. They have been coming to it for years.

We have rituals before we leave the house. We check to make sure that the doors are locked. We make sure that all of the cats are accounted for and none are trapped behind a door of a room they shouldn’t be in. We make sure we have our keys before leaving. Skip a step and things might not go as planned.

I have patterns of behavior when I work on a creative project. A lot of it happens in my head but I recognize it as it is happening. Once I am actively working on a puppet I have things I do in a certain order so that there won’t be delays in assembling the critter. I also count off the steps in my head. Forget a step and I am delayed in completing the project in a timely fashion.

Caroline has her bedtime ritual. She brushes her teeth, gets on her PJs, gathers up the stuffed animals that are going to occupy her bed with her, and has us sing a song to her that we have been singing to her since she was born. She goes to sleep pretty promptly after that a little after 9:00 pm and gets up around 6:30 am or so. She says that the song tells her that her day is done and it is time for her to go to sleep.

I now don’t feel as bad or strange for some of my behaviors because they make me feel better or more centered. They are rituals that help me get through the day.

So convention folk, what are your convention rituals?

I am grateful for articles that make me feel better about being me.