No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on October 30, 2010

Today there is a Halloween festival in town that I think Caroline and I might attend. Peter is off to the Rally to restore/instill Sanity and/or Fear. A friend of his got him VIP passes so he knows he’ll have a decent place to sit for the thing. The trick is getting down there. He is within range of DC but now comes the tricky part of parking and getting to the rally. Cross your fingers for him.

So today is my prep day. I have to sort comics and fix a couple of parts on Caroline costume and make sure she has the correct leggings for it. I also need to re-enforce her shield. For those of you at Shoreleave or DragonCon, she is wearing her Astrid Costume this year. Next year she wants to be Charmcaster from Ben 10. Guess I need a very long white wig for her for that one but that’s another Halloween.

Integrating Fig with the other cats continues. There are good days and bad days but I think that the older boys have figured out that this small annoying ball of fur is not going away and the kitty politics is being sorted out. She is growing quickly like all kittens and has that awkward ungraceful phase that all cats go through.

UPDATE: Peter has parked and is on his way to the Rally. He has some time to get where he needs to be. There are already a lot of people there.

Happy Birthday to my Niece. Hope that the presents arrived on time.

I am grateful that Peter didn’t run into goo-gobs of traffic. I don’t think he is going to escape the traffic going home.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 29, 2010

It has been a busy week at Casa David. Saturday we put out our Halloween decorations. Caroline was thrilled that this year she could really help because she is tall enough to hold the lights while I tape them in place. After getting everything out, we were pleased with the look of it. Creepy during the day and colorful (and creepy) at night.

Sunday, Peter and Caroline went up to SHU to see Ariel’s fall family concert along with Peter’s sister Beth and her daughters. I stayed home because of kitten concerns and good thing too because my stomach decided to rebel against something rather graphically. Not a pleasant day for me at all.

Monday was filled with my usual Monday activities. Monday is my busy day for the week. I have lunch at a friend’s pub and catch up on news and the like. I volunteer at my daughter’s school library. And in the evening, I have my Monday night ladies bowling league.

Tuesday was a catch-up day for a lot of things that had slipped through the cracks. Including food shopping and some things needed for Halloween and the house.

Wednesday was at the school again for the book fair where I ran the cash register and helped kids figure out if they had enough money for what they got. The wrinkle is that last year the tax laws concerning state tax changed in New York State due to Amazon and some other online retailers and now the book fair has to pay taxes on their sales which means that a book that a kid use to be able to get with 5.00 because it was 4.99 is no longer in the cards for them. Which really bites for kids who save their merger allowance to be able to buy a book for them or they have very limited income but the parents scrapped together enough that their kids could buy something. The PTA and the friends of the library do provide books for kids with no pocket money but there is only so much they can do. I stayed a little longer because they were short handed which was fine.

At the end of the school day, we picked up Caroline and went into the city for the road show of America’s Got Talent hosted by Jerry Springer who turned out to be a good MC and a pretty funny comedian in his own right. And who knew that he could sing like Elvis? Caroline’s favorites were Defying Gravity, Prince Poppycock, and the kid dancers Patrick and Anna. The singers she could take or leave. She did wonder why a 10 year old girl would sing Opera rather rock and roll. For me it was a toss up between Poppycock who did a selection from the Barber of Seville and recreated his Queen Bohemian Rhapsody piece and Defying Gravity which is much more impressive in person than on TV. The magician Michael Grasso so needs a Vegas show. He is very good as is his assistant. His showmanship is polished and lovely to watch.

Thursday was another fast paced day. Peter took Day 2 of the Book Fair because I had forgotten that I was chaperoning Caroline’s class to the Long Island Science Center for a class on Bats. I learned a lot about bats and had fun with the children at the science center. I taught a number of them the difference between an open system and a closed system with these very clever ramps and other pieces that had magnets so you could create all kinds of configurations and then see if the marble that you dropped at the top could make it to the cup at the bottom.

Then Thursday evening was the Harvest Dance at the school. It was interesting to see how Caroline has changed over the years. When she was in kindergarten and I took her to the dance, she stayed very close to me unless it was one of her little friends but she didn’t participate that much. In first grade she participated in the group dances more but still kept checking to see if I was there watching her. This year she was into the dance and playing with her friends. There were the rare check-ins but most of the evening she was off on her own playing with her friends.

Today we start to get the comic books ready for the trick or treaters on Sunday. There is a number of things that need to get done before about 4 pm on the 31st. So today is another busy day of things that need to be done. Once I get to Election Day, my life gets a little easier. Or at least that is what I am telling myself.

So that’s the past week. Looking forward to Sunday. Hope everyone has a good weekend.

I am grateful for being able to watch my child grow and learn and all the people who are helping her to do this.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 25, 2010

Yes, I know that the Giants verse the Cowboys is tonight and that’s a big deal but I want to talk about what I saw yesterday and read about today.

Last week most of the sports pundits were talking about the fine imposed on various players for helmet contact. There were a few that were blatant but there were some that were not on purpose it’s just how the play shook out. The players were complaining from both sides of the line. They would much rather risk their heads than their knees which is what is going to get hurt as they have to move further down the body not to hit the head. So look for more knee injuries in the near future along with more clipping calls by the referees.

College had a lot of “upsets” for the 4th week in a row. Meantime Boise State continues to linger in third as Auburn jumps over Oregon and Boise. Ohio State has fallen to eleventh which is a crying shame but that is how the polls go. Boise Fans are asking what do they have to do to prove that they are the best? And the “established” conferences explain why their wins should count more than that Boise’s. I still don’t understand the formula that is used but it is flawed at best. Meanwhile expect Auburn to lose next week and someone else that is not Oregon or Boise to rise to number 1.

I saw the play in the Steelers vs. Dolphins game. I also saw all the replays that they were showing. Thank goodness that it was on CBS rather than Fox or I would be looking at things now rather then at the time. Not a clear recovery? Who was holding the ball in the end of the scramble? Not a Steeler and that’s all that they needed to know. This is something they have to do with every fumble and ball grab every game. We have seen this a million times. But this time they didn’t know who had the ball? It was a weird call and I think a bad one (sorry Steelers fans but it was a bad call like the one that was made against your team earlier in the game.)

And that brings us to a problem this season with the refs and the reviews which have been odd all year. Overturned plays that don’t make any sense. Other obvious plays that should have been overturned and aren’t. I don’t know what goes on under the hood, but it doesn’t seemed based in reality.

And who put the red bull in the Raiders Gatorade? Jeez they didn’t win, they dominated. Maybe they should ask to have some of those points applied to other games.

Turnovers changed the momentum of several games yesterday. If you don’t have control of the ball, then you lose. I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of yelling going on in team meetings about controlling the ball.

And there were a lot of lower hits but no knees were harmed in the defense of the football that I know of.

I am grateful that I did get to watch a couple of games yesterday all on CBS.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 24, 2010

Today for a variety of reasons I have a day at the house by myself. Peter and Caroline are off to one of Ariel’s concerts and to meet-up with my sister-in-law and her two daughters. Fig is still a little too little to be left alone all day. She is getting bigger but still needs someone around to keep her out of trouble.

So it was really quiet here for a while. No one was doing lawn work. I could hear the birds and a couple of squirrels arguing over something. The cats were sleeping with the occasional pitter-patter of a kitten running at full tilt. I was relaxing in the quiet when the noise started with an oversized rig coming up the street with a large boat. Since then I have had leaf blowers, mowers, and other mechanical sounds as the weekend warriors work on their lawns and houses. I figure it will quiet down about the time that football comes on.

I found at an early age that I did like the quiet of nature, which isn’t really that quiet. There is just something about being able to hear birdsong, the breeze going through the trees, or the sound of water wearing out the land that has grounded me and my thoughts. After I opened a show I had a ritual that I would go somewhere quiet for a long walk to let go off all the pressure I had been under and flip my brain from rehearsal to running a show. This can be harder to do on an Island but it is amazing the amount of park space there is out here. Also the place I live is pretty quiet for the most part. So I continue to take sometime to enjoy the lack of industrial sound.

But there are times I need noise to focus me. It can be too quiet and my brain can scatter all over the place. I use either music or the TV to bring me back to a point where I can focus on one thing. I like giving my brain time to roam but it can be hard to pull it back to where I need it. Yeah, I know I’m weird but I have gotten use to that.

I have an opportunity that dropped in my lap that I need to think about today. I think I know what I can do for my pitch but it is going in a couple of directions. Now I need to find a few more of these to get something rolling the direction I need it to roll.

Then I start to think about all the other things I need to or want to do and the noise in my brain increases to a crescendo of thoughts and feelings that overwhelm me. I think I need to go back to making lists to clear my head. It worked for me while I was a stage manager and as a book editor so it should work for me now. I think.

But for now I think I am going to wait for the quiet to return and take what’s left of my coffee to the back porch and listen to nature for a bit and let my mind run free.

I am grateful for both the quiet and the noise in my life.

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Posted By Kathleen David on October 23, 2010

As in the Disney Epic Mickey Digicomics were released for the iPhone and the iPad. Peter wrote all the comics that they released including one that has been described as a love letter to the Adventurers’ Club which is now slated to be knocked down. Peter has been working on the project for a while but it is nice to see it out there so others can enjoy what I have been chucking over for about a year now.

Also his next issue of X-Factor is out in which Rahne and Rictor go in for an ultrasound to see what the baby looks like and come out with more questions than when they go in.

And then there is the Ghostbusters issue that Peter and I did. Yes, I know that my name got left off the credits but it was done by both of us. I am hoping that this will be corrected in the graphic novel. I enjoyed writing it and hope I can get the chance to write a couple more comics. It helps compress my rambling story telling quite a bit.

Today Caroline and I are going to pull out and put up the Halloween display. We may have to replace a piece or two but I want to see what has survived up until this point. She is really excited because this year she is big enough to really help rather than sort of help.

Pumpkin picking is soon and I do plan to put up at least one of all the years we have been doing it. It is sort of a touchstone for me every year. Hard to believe that she is turning 8 this year.

I am grateful for all the fun we have had with Epic Mickey so far.

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