Busy weekend...
I've actually posted quite a few Tweets about it, but the Twitter extension on LJ has hiccuped and Twittenesis is suspended for some inexplicable reason.
In short: Saturday was my dad's 62nd birthday, and as he put it "I'm officially old." I keep telling him he isn't old until he starts nit-picking at the baggers in the store where I work.
Sunday was a fairly quiet day, but after last week, between an appointment with my therapist, various festivities and having to work part of Memorial Day weekend (ie. Everyone buying their picnic/barbecue stuff), I needed a quiet day.
And for the first time in a few years, I did not have to work Memorial Day: I actually got to see our town's Memorial Day Parade from start to finish, and despite the heat, I walked up the blocked-off part of Main Street (literally: I was walking down the center line as often as I could) as far as I could go before I met the parade. I got as far as St. William's Church (about a mile from our house) before I heard marching bands in the near distance. And so, after nipping into the church to say a prayer for the souls of all our departed soldiers, I found a shady spot under some trees and watched from there.
At one point, during the parade, there was a bit of a bottleneck which happened in front of me. Several of our town's soldiers and veterans ended up paused close to where I was standing, and I got to witness something interesting: several generations of soldiers, from an eighty year old man in a World War II uniform, a seventy-year old from the Korean War, a sixty-year old from Viet Nam, and some twenty and thirty-year olds from the Gulf Wars, chatting amongst themselves like brothers. Very simple, yet very touching.
Work yesterday ended up being as busy as a holiday: everyone who'd been away for the weekend was coming in to restock their home!
And this morning, I got awakened by a thunderstorm with marble-sized hailstones bonking off my window. I got up and scurried around the house, unhooking electronics that were not on surge protectors (Ie. The iPad, for some odd reason: I've since moved the charger to the surge protector for the TV). I enjoy a good thunderstorm, but getting woken by one, not so much.
Also, am back to watching Stargate SG-1, after finding it on Hulu.com. It's hilariously bad and good at the same time, but it never really takes itself seriously, which is refreshing in a way. I swear O'Neill snarking at things is meant to be a bit of an Audience Surrogate for the folks who groan over it, while Jackson's gushing about stuff is ditto for the geeks who love it.
Also, have been watching Anime I'd Said I'd Never Watch, namely Black Butler and Axis Powers Hetalia... And enjoying them. Most of the reason for the swearing I wouldn't watch them? The extreme popularity was despair-inducing. It was impossible to go onto dear_mun without seeing an army of Hetalia and Black Butler characters, which had me despairing of ever finding any canon mates for my YnM pups. There again...Black Butler is like what you'd get if you mooshed Hellsing and YnM together....
Dare I say, I have an idea for a Hetalia character: Rebecca "Becky" Corwin, aka. Massachusetts, a feisty, bookish gal with a fierce Boston accent and an impishly rebellious nature (Hey, she dumped her uncle England's tea into Boston Harbor, back in the day). No, she is not a blue-collar sports fan: that's one Massachusetts trope that I've seen someone do before with a Hetalia character, and it annoys me. We're not all rabid Red Sox/Bruins/Patriots fans who trash the street if the team wins.
In short: Saturday was my dad's 62nd birthday, and as he put it "I'm officially old." I keep telling him he isn't old until he starts nit-picking at the baggers in the store where I work.
Sunday was a fairly quiet day, but after last week, between an appointment with my therapist, various festivities and having to work part of Memorial Day weekend (ie. Everyone buying their picnic/barbecue stuff), I needed a quiet day.
And for the first time in a few years, I did not have to work Memorial Day: I actually got to see our town's Memorial Day Parade from start to finish, and despite the heat, I walked up the blocked-off part of Main Street (literally: I was walking down the center line as often as I could) as far as I could go before I met the parade. I got as far as St. William's Church (about a mile from our house) before I heard marching bands in the near distance. And so, after nipping into the church to say a prayer for the souls of all our departed soldiers, I found a shady spot under some trees and watched from there.
At one point, during the parade, there was a bit of a bottleneck which happened in front of me. Several of our town's soldiers and veterans ended up paused close to where I was standing, and I got to witness something interesting: several generations of soldiers, from an eighty year old man in a World War II uniform, a seventy-year old from the Korean War, a sixty-year old from Viet Nam, and some twenty and thirty-year olds from the Gulf Wars, chatting amongst themselves like brothers. Very simple, yet very touching.
Work yesterday ended up being as busy as a holiday: everyone who'd been away for the weekend was coming in to restock their home!
And this morning, I got awakened by a thunderstorm with marble-sized hailstones bonking off my window. I got up and scurried around the house, unhooking electronics that were not on surge protectors (Ie. The iPad, for some odd reason: I've since moved the charger to the surge protector for the TV). I enjoy a good thunderstorm, but getting woken by one, not so much.
Also, am back to watching Stargate SG-1, after finding it on Hulu.com. It's hilariously bad and good at the same time, but it never really takes itself seriously, which is refreshing in a way. I swear O'Neill snarking at things is meant to be a bit of an Audience Surrogate for the folks who groan over it, while Jackson's gushing about stuff is ditto for the geeks who love it.
Also, have been watching Anime I'd Said I'd Never Watch, namely Black Butler and Axis Powers Hetalia... And enjoying them. Most of the reason for the swearing I wouldn't watch them? The extreme popularity was despair-inducing. It was impossible to go onto dear_mun without seeing an army of Hetalia and Black Butler characters, which had me despairing of ever finding any canon mates for my YnM pups. There again...Black Butler is like what you'd get if you mooshed Hellsing and YnM together....
Dare I say, I have an idea for a Hetalia character: Rebecca "Becky" Corwin, aka. Massachusetts, a feisty, bookish gal with a fierce Boston accent and an impishly rebellious nature (Hey, she dumped her uncle England's tea into Boston Harbor, back in the day). No, she is not a blue-collar sports fan: that's one Massachusetts trope that I've seen someone do before with a Hetalia character, and it annoys me. We're not all rabid Red Sox/Bruins/Patriots fans who trash the street if the team wins.