We. Have. An. Offer. On. Our. House!!!!!!!!
Ok, it's just the first step. The prospective buyer is FHA, which brings along a whole host of restrictions and requirements and such, but ... it's the first concrete hope we've had. And it's not even an insultingly lowball offer. Pleasepleaseplease, if you are at all inclined to send prayers or positive vibes or anything along those lines, please send that, so that we may sell this house before we have to start shoveling snow on two properties.
And now on to the update I've been meaning to make for almost a week now.
Black belt class last Fri was good. No silly lectures this time, and I felt less incompetent than I've felt the past couple of weeks. Not that I don't still feel a long way from being actually competent, but I'll take what I can get. I got my hard-earned Cold Stone sundae on the way home, then spent the night at the PA house, as usual. It took me awhile to fall asleep, though (odd, given how tired I was) so I ended up sleeping later than planned in the morning. Ran some errands, mowed the lawn (in sprinkling rain - nothing to do about that) and then - albeit an hour later than I'd hoped for - headed off to the
Chestnut Hill Harry Potter Festival, north of Philadelphia. I'd read about it online, and it sounded like fun, so off I went.
The first indication I had that this event was a wee bit more popular than I had anticipated was when traffic started jamming up a good mile out. In fact, I actually wondered if all those people were there for the fest, or if there was also a football game going on or something. But when I pulled over to speak to some people who were on foot, they confirmed that, yes, it was for the HP fest. Thankfully, I found some on-street parking a minute later; it was JUST big enough for the Subaru, but I managed it. Even so, it was probably a good mile (1.6km) walk in, and one woman confirmed that she'd tried to find parking for 45 minutes so I considered myself lucky.
Basically, this one section of street was turned into a pedestrian zone, with a bunch of vendors up and down the street, plus people in full costume that you could pose for pictures with. Everything was free (unless you wanted to buy something). The vendors fell into three major categories:
1) People who were selling handcrafts (this was probably the rarest sort).
2) People selling commercial HP-themed wares.
3) Tents in front of existing shops, selling HP-themed (or semi-related) items.
There were also food vendors; some sold HP-themed items, like Potter-themed sweets/baked items, or a place selling hot cider that you could opt to buy in a cute glass mug that had Potter's glasses etched on one side and "I solemnly swear I am up to no good" etched on the other. There was a fish-and-chips vendor, so semi-Potter-ified. Others sold pizza or cotton candy or whatever, completely unrelated.
The problem was the crowds. As you could probably guess, based on my descriptions of parking and traffic, there were a billion people there. Sometimes, you could literally not even move, there were so many people. Other times, you could walk just fine, but there were still loads of people to dodge. Getting in close to some of the vendor tables was difficult, depending on how popular the vendor was. Lines for food and top products were INSANE. I kind of wanted one of the glass mugs, but the line for getting it with cider was too crazy. I found another nearby line where you could get the mug only, no cider, but they ran out shortly before I got to the head of the line. So, alas, earwax, didn't get one. I did manage to score a bottle of knockoff butterbeer, which I brought back to NJ so we could all share. It was very VERY strongly butterscotch-flavored, but not bad.
Honestly, the thing I liked best was seeing all the different costumes and tshirts people had. Some were basic movie-based robes, or tshirts I'd seen plenty of times, but other people were creative or had items I had never seen before. And, honestly, it was heartwarming to see all the people - all ages, all backgrounds - who still loved HP, despite the passage of years.
I only bought a few small things. I picked up a free bookmark and postcard "owl" they were handing out at some of the festival-sponsored vendor tents, and a vinyl window decal of "Quidditch Crossing" for my car window.
hamsterwoman, I got a small Slytherin sticker for L. Also bought some small non-Potter items in the local shops. It was a very high-end, artsy sort of street, in terms of the shops that normally live there, but they were fun to poke around in, even if not necessarily full of things I wanted to actually spend money on. Also, every shop had been given a Potter-themed sign to hang in their window, and most had done up a Potter-themed front window display, as well. So, for example, a women's clothing store proclaimed itself to be "Fleur's Fabulous Frocks" and one selling high-end skincare stuff was "Jiggery's Apothecary" or something like that. The largest of the banks was labeled "Gringotts" - no surprise there. Oh, and a housewares store had a sign announcing "Hermione and Ron registered here!" *g* So, that was fun, too.
Still, I'm not sure I would normally bother going again - the crowds really took the fun out of it, and it wasn't like there was a lot to otherwise DO. But Karen was jealous that she didn't get to see it, herself, and wants to go next year so ... maybe I'll do it again so she won't have to go by herself.
(Speaking of HP stuff -
this Seahawks player dressed as Potter for a news conference is just adorable.)
I got home mid-afternoon on Sat, walking right into Jade's degrading health issues, which I've already detailed, so I won't do it again except to say that
we did end up taking her to the vet on Tues.
Will was working in PA that day, and I was supposed to go along with him; I had a doctor's appointment in town that afternoon, and planned to go to TKD at noon beforehand. But when Jade, who had been doing better on Mon, showed that she was still clearly unwell on Tues, I felt I couldn't leave her unattended. Rob was home, but he's buried in his office upstairs. Jade couldn't spend the day in her crate, couldn't be left unattended downstairs in case she needed out, and even if she was upstairs with him, I wasn't sure he'd be able to walk away from his desk in time to get her outside if she had an emergency. And I wasn't comfortable with dragging her along 90 miles in the car if she didn't feel well - I've had a dog barf in the car before (Cassie). It's not fun. So, I had to make the last-minute decision to stay home with Jade, and get her to a vet. Will went off to PA without me.
The vet proved to be a bit of a stumbling block. When we first moved in, I asked neighbors across the street (who have multiple pets) what vet they used, because R&K's vet is 35 mins away by car, and I didn't like the thought of dragging a sick pet that far, if I had to. They gave me the name of a place and spoke highly of it, so I gave them a call Tues a.m. - after first waiting for 9am even though the website said they opened at 7:30a.m. on Tuesdays. And then found out they wouldn't see her, because she was a new patient. I get that they only have a limited number of same-day appointments and they reserve those for returning clients, except I was perfectly willing to BE a returning client after that. But they refused to budge, so I hung up in frustration. Thankfully, Karen was still home - she was just about to leave for work - so she called up her vet, and they were fine with getting Jade in, even on my own account (and not on Karen's existing one). So, despite wanting to avoid having to take a sick pet on a long car trip, that's what I ended up doing. Thankfully, Jade was okay in the car. Despite having never been in that vet before, though, she knew IMMEDIATELY what we were there for, and started shaking while we were waiting in the reception area. She's not scared of much of anything - I'd never seen her shake before, ever - so this was definitely new for her, poor baby.
The vet we got was nice, as was the assistant. She (the vet) palpated Jade's belly and didn't feel she'd eaten anything too serious - no blockages or perforations seemed likely. It could be she'd eaten something mildly bad. Or that it was just a bug - apparently there's dog flu season just like there is for people flue, with the change of seasons, and I guess this is going around. Jade got some fluids, a shot of anti-nausea medicine, and some pills to take home. We were told not to feed her for the rest of the day, to give her system a chance to rest. And while Jade was clearly feeling a bit off - she was quieter than usual at home - she was still rather Put Out not to get her dinner that night (and no breakfast, either). When I started feeding her again on Wed morning, in small amounts, she snarfed down each offering within seconds. And she's been fine since then, thank goodness.
Tuesday had also gotten off to a rough start when MiniPlu woke me at 5:05am (my alarm goes off at 5:45am) to say that her insides were bothering her. She eventually recovered and felt well enough to go to school (where there were no further incidences), but I spent the first half hour of my morning tending to her. So, between MiniPlu and Jade, my whole day basically went to hell in a handbasket before it was even 8am. :-P
On Tues evening I caved and made my
pumpkin cupcakes. I used to make them every year, but hadn't done so for the past couple of years. I split the wet part of the batter and made half of them regular and half GF. Yum.
Two major companies have recently unveiled ad campaigns featuring transgender storylines, which I have been delighted to share with Two:
Secret deodorant (queer actor, portraying mtf person)
Nike - unlimited courage (Chris Mosier, ftm competitor on the US men's duathlon team) Although I slightly resent the question "How did you know you could keep up with men?" which implies that he isn't a man. I mean, I get the point they're trying to make, and just having the ad at all is a huge step forward, but it's still not the greatest phrasing.
I've been feeling like I might be getting yet another cold. Trying to stave it off, but I'm probably eating far too much sugar (OMG, have been so addicted to sugar lately) to do my immune system any real good. :-P