Situation
Normal
All
Fucked
Up.


I can never, EVER, submit an expense report at work without myself and someone else having to jump a bazillion hoops.

This time I can't get the transmittal sheet to print. My poor IT guy...he's trying....freaking J&J.

---

I admit it. I got teary over the DNC. *sniffle*

---

YESSSSS my expense report and my printer are MAKING SWEET SWEET LOVE.

We have a radio station here that plays 60s and 70s music (although I've yet to hear Don't Give Up On Us except the very very last line in a re-run of an American Top Forty broadcast from 1976) and they love to play "Chevy Van":

'Cause like a princess she was layin' there
Moonlight dancin' off her hair
She woke up and took me by the hand
She's gonna love me in my Chevy van
And that's all right with me

Now every time we hear it, we laugh, and every time we see a Chevy van, we plot how to get inside and do the deed.

While I was gone to SHarecon, he found a Matchbox Chevy van. Purple, with a crazy yellow/silver/purple 70s paint job, two sunroofs, and the round window in the side.

God, I love him.

that you were out of it the day before...

I had my underwear on inside out, all day. Didn't notice until this morning.

---

Still not fully rested but am trying to get back up to speed. Have checked in with Job #2, haven't booted Job #1 yet but am about to. Have PT in an hour.

---

Katie is in major trouble. She's going to be coming with me to PT since I can't trust her enough to leave her here without me. She has a chore list a mile long, has no mp3 player, no Nintendo DS Lite, no library books. Gonna be a long two weeks.

---

Thinking of lasairfhiona's son being rescued from the mountain today. Send warm and good thoughts north, if you would.

( Very incoherent ramblings below )

After the craziness of landing in, and then leaving, Houston, coming home was a breeze. Flights left on time. I saw the MISSISSIPPI!!! It's FREAKING HUGE!!!

The first leg to Houston, I managed to not grab my boarding pass for the second leg and I'd already gone through security, so I asked at the desk at the gate. They printed one out for me, and then they called me back up to the desk and asked if I woudln't mind changing seats to allow a family of six to be together.

I had wanted to move, actually, so I could be on the right side of the plane and thus have better control over my poor shoulder and what it got subjected to. I ended up in row six (which is technically row four) and there was no one in the middle seat next to me! And the window area was concave and gave me more room for my shoulder. Score.

Second leg, my seat didn't change, but again, no one in the seat next to me! Score again! the only bad thing was that the light at the end of the wing shone right in my eyes so I had to lower the shade a bit, but I spotted the Las Vegas Strip from the air. You can't miss that shape and how BRIGHT it was. One lone white light shone out; I assume it was the Luxor. :) We were really up high, but it was very obvious that was Vegas.

The backpack wearing was AWESOME. It worked out so well. My Torino pin survived the whole trip on the backpack, too.

Got to spend a bunch of time with sc_fossil at BWI as we were in the same concourse, but vastly, VASTLY different gates. She got to hear me talk to Roy on the phone, lol, and we both ate and yakked and yakked and yakked....we can talk, can't we? LOL

But it's good to be home, children fussing notwithstanding. And my luggage beat me here, lol, but at least it was here, with all those zines.

that I won't be there this year for this for LeRoi.

Three vids premiered at SHarecon this weekend. YT and Download links below. :) Currently uploading to Imeem: http://www.imeem.com/lauramcewan

---

Title: Heaven
Vidder: Laura McEwan
Fandom: Starsky & Hutch
Artist: John Barrowman
Notes: Premiered at SHarecon, August 23, 2008. For racric, Rae.

Download
You Tube

---

Title: Hollow Man
Vidder: Laura McEwan
Fandom: Starsky & Hutch
Artist: REM
Notes: Premiered at SHarecon, August 23, 2008. Special thanks to sjames_centre, Susan, for her artistic assistance, and this vid is for her.

Download
You Tube

---

Title: Still the One
Vidder: Laura McEwan
Fandom: Starsky & Hutch
Artist: Orleans
Notes: Premiered at SHarecon, August 23, 2008. For Dawn, with whom I held hands wihile the vid showed. :)

Download
You Tube

I won a Golden Boy award for contributions to S&H fandom, for recruiting new people in via my vids.

I'm so grateful and humbled and OMG. *sniff*

am exhausted. enednoviel has been asleep awhile now, but I persevered until midnight thirty. Am heading to bed. Lots of fun folks, fangirling of people like Dana Austin Marsh and Lorrain Brevig and Suzan Lovett, and Flamingo, of course, just to name a few.

*crawls into bed*

Garlic chicken. stuffing. Caesar salad. YUMMMMMM.

So, the flights were....interesting. First I was already sad about hearing of LeRoi's passing, so listened morbidly to DMB songs on my mp3 player a bit. Then tried to watch "Prince Caspian" as the inflight movie, but only saw the beginning and end and I think I only recall hearing Liam's voice once.

The flight was very full and my with my sore shoulder trying to share space with a very handsome young man. I'm in my lounge pants and my camisole stretchy shelf bra top for comfort, but I had to lose the windbreaker because the plane was too damned hot. I had the air on full blast, but once we got up to altitude it started blowing warm air.

So, I slept on and off, and as we grew closer to Houston I spotted a lightning storm way out in front of us and to the side. Very pretty in the clouds.

We land...it's raining...we're taxiing over to our gate, and out my window I'm noticing that there's some airport traffic, specifically one airport truck, trundling along towards us. Heading right for our drive path. I shit you not. All I could do was blink and blink and think, "Is this for real? Am I mis-seeing this somehow? There's some other road I *think* he's on, right?" And then he was out of my sight, too far up the plane...and the plane BRAKES hard! We jitter, like ABS brakes applying - jut-jut-jut. I'm thinking, "Shit, we hit him! we hit him!" but we hadn't, thank goodness. Next thing I saw was him backing his truck UP! I and a few other people who'd seen the truck hurtling at us were all explaining, 'The truck was driving RIGHT FOR US!"

How does one NOT SEE a big 737 IN FRONT OF THEM??? geezum!!

So, that was fine, Handsome Young Man pulled my bag down for me so I wouldnt' have to, and I get right over to my next gate to fly to BWI. Board the plane. Stow my luggage. Wait. Seat next to me becomes occupied by a woman larger than I am. We squish nicely together. My shoulder doesn't like this. By mutual silent agreement, we just *lean* on each other and deal.

Taxi out to the runway. Wait. Wait. Taxi and turn, taxi......wait. Pilot: Due to weather issues, the ATC has rerouted us to fly NE over Little ROck instead of east over NOLA. We have to wait in this line to use this runway, should be about 20 minutes."

Wait. Wait. Wait.

"This is your captain. If you're on the right side of the plane, you can see we still have a long line. Another twenty minutes or so."

Wait. Wait. Wait. An hour late, we finally take off.

The flight is fine, she and I shift as we can.

Breakfast is served - cereal and banana. Child two rows ahead of us gets sick. Flight attendants have to biohazmat the scene. Don't smell anything, thank goodness.

I have no idea where we are. mrshamill says she watched my flight pattern and the we flew up to Columbus, OH or so.

So, we're about to land, and we're coming down, down, down --- not ready to land yet, but we're up again. We've been waved away. Incident with a plane, responders are at it.

Um, Ok.

Fly around TWENTY MORE MINUTES.

Finally land. Call mrshamill to let her know I'm down. She's not there yet, had been watching the flight.

Got my suitcase immediately off the carousel, yay.

Terri rescues me and we're off and I get to ride on the Beltway for the first time ever!

and now I know what a cicada looks and sounds like. :D

Tomorrow, hopefully kris4n6. Due to my late arrival and a call she had to go on, did not get to see her today. Then SHarecon!

I can't seem to post slideshows directly here - any one know the trick?

Here are the direct links:

Pacific City and the beach: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/0903/raynebow/?action=view¤t=bf0453a7.pbw

Bay City and looking for Starsky and Hutch: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/0903/raynebow/?action=view¤t=be81b567.pbw

Today my baby is EIGHT years old.

*sniffles*

Sweet and fun, and although you've hit the point where you're testing daddy and I by being deliberately disobedient at times, we know that this too shall pass. Our precious wish-for baby, you've made our wishes come true.

Third grade looms.

We love you so much, darling girl.



And you celebrate your birthday with so many others!

President Clinton!
Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes)!
Uncle Jesse (John Stamos)!
Kyra Sedgwick (where's the Bacon?)!
Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry)!

And...well...Fred Thompson. Yay. lol

---

I'm packed. Poor dipslikeramon, she had to put up with my complaining I couldn't find a particular top, but then I did, yay!

This afternoon I will pack the laptop, head for Jayne's bday party, back home, shower, and head for the airport.

BUTTERFLIES OMG.

but since I'm on VACATION, I plan to wear myself out a bit by taking care of some rather neglected household chores, and get groceries for the family for when I'm gone and they'll have to *gasp* FEND FOR THEMSELVES!!

It feels like October. I love it. Gray and wet, but still warm - it's 67F. The clouds are making it darker, sooner. I have an enchilada casserole in the oven, and it smells like fall and winter cooking. (It's a frozen box meal, lol, but it still smells good)

I'm ON VACATION!!!

*back to packing*

Apparently, me.

I scheduled off this entire week, yet I've been operating under the assumption that I would work today and tomorrow, although sketchily, lol.

Go figure.

I'm going to wade through the weekend emails at BC, deal with cases in SF, and attend two shortish meetings, becuase I'd already committed to them. Duh me. But still, things are moving along, the washer and dryer are running, there are actual items in my suitcase....but ahhh...I just felt the weight slide off my shoulders of getting it all together. THIS WAS WHY I took the whole week plus Monday and Tuesday next week! Sheesh....lol.

Here comes the thunderstorm for today. I get to go driving in it, whee! :D

Saturday night we had one, too - it was brief - woke me up for a short time, Roy slept right through it.

GODS, I love the rumble and roar of thunder, the huge, raw power of it all.

It makes my heart feel so full when I see all the young (and 30 something!) ladies in the individual gymnastics events congratulate and support each other, even though they are all from different countries and are competitors. One world, indeed.

HUGE storm coming in Tuesday - I'll be flying out in a storm, so cross your fingers my flight isn't delayed.

Today was sticky and icky - at one point, it was 82F and 56% humidity, feeling like 84F. I don't do humidity well, so watch me melt in MD this week.

Trying to get caught up on Caring work - got behind. BC work is piling up and LB and I are feeling the pinch between the two jobs, but really, I can't give up Caring right now - I need a fridge, I have a car payment, and there's dance and baseball and swimming to pony up for, so....

I have plans to be a FlyBaby again come September. I need to get myself better scheduled and organized. I do far better with lists and tick marks showing what I've done and need to do. I did SO well on it a few years ago, and then one big event blew it all out of the water and I couldn't recover. Still, I'm no example to my children and I need to be a better one.

Volunteering at school is likely to become a rarer thing, sadly. racric and I were talking about it, and the guilt I feel over that particular decision is heavy. I'll already be involved in PTA, and K and I have plans for getting yearbook pages done as events happen instead of waiting until May and rushing it through. Photography needs to be done, etc. and we get the school pictures from the photography studio when the kid pics are delivered, so those can be laid out far sooner than spring. Another example of taking tasks in bite-sized chunks.

This also will allow me to block out gym time. I want to swim more, I want to do more weight training. It needs to be in the plan for the day, and I need to plan in fannish time, and veg time, too.

---

I've been on an emotional roller coaster today - a kiddie coaster, but still a coaster. Joy in knowing SHarecon is nearly upon me, sadness for Eleanor. Excitement for two lovers finally being together, dread in knowing the my kitchen floor needs serious attention. Happy in that I do love and feel fulfilled in my jobs, frustration in falling behind in them. Panic in that I don't have anything ready for the kids for school yet, relief in knowing that they'll be to school in two weeks' time and I'll not be brokering peace treaties. Anger at the kids for not taking on their responsibilities themselves, and joy in the hugs and kisses I get even when I've been angry.

22 ounces of Cream Ale doesn't hurt, either. :)

I'm not done with work. I need to finish those up. I shall listen to Peter Gabriel and John Barrowman, Dave Matthews and Indigo Girls and press onward.

Tomorrow, piano, an orthodontist appointment, and two meetings. Somewhere in there, laundry and packing, and I've not loaded up enednoviel's Palm yet, lol. That may end up happening in MD!

---

It's 72 outside. A storm is coming for Tuesday:

An Unseasonably Strong Storm Expected To Impact Southwest

Washington And Northwest Oregon Mid Week...
Warning Message:

Computer models agree on bringing an unseasonably strong storm
into southwest Washington and northwest Oregon by the middle of
this week. This storm is actually moderately strong even for
winter time...and will likely produce unusually strong winds for
Summer along the coast and an unseasonably high amount of
rainfall.
This system will likely produce gale force winds over the coastal
waters beginning late Tuesday and continuing Tuesday night. Wind
gusts along the immediate coast could reach 50 mph or more. This
storm also is forecast to have a very high moisture content...and
will likely produce a significant amount of rainfall throughout
much of southwest Washington and northwest Oregon Tuesday night
and Wednesday morning...and will likely make a very large Dent in
the fire season in this area.

Pray my 12:35 am flight isn't delayed by this - hopefully it will still be at the coast at the point I fly out.

The butterflies, they're flying......

has lost her son.

Eleanor is not on LJ, but she she is a friend of mine from the Dave Barry for President board on World Crossing. She has been a huge cheerleader in my vidding, and I credited her in "Something to Talk About".

I'm so very heartbroken for her. I had a passing acquaintance with him, helping her convert music he'd send her so her computer would play it right, and a few other things.

I cannot even begin to imagine the pain she is feeling. I don't know the details of his husband's passing, nor Jeffrey's, and El is not, understandably, in a position to explain it.

Give a thought to Eleanor, Jeffrey and Isaac on this most horribly sad weekend of funerals.

It's 84 outside, and hotter inside. Gah. *aims wee fan*

Birthday dinner was great. Here's a slideshow!

Yep. whee! *ice cream, ice tea, water, ice cubes, air conditioning*

Off to a restaurant in a couple of hours. *wipes sweat*