Ragani

Welcome DAHLIA MADELEINE SPIZMAN who arrived at 12:15am May 14.
All 7 lbs and 13 oz. of her.

Good job, psyche7772 and mercator_7!!! She's a beauty!

Hey kalendargirl!

Start here...

then hit Next... then again... keep going... yeah, you get the idea.

Since she will be on a plane heading out for her honeymoon later, I thought I should say it now...

Happy (early) birthday psyche7772!

Have a safe journey, and find some time to enjoy 070707 tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, devonapple!

I suppose I should post some actual content one of these days, as it has been the typical case of not posting being caused by too much stuff going on in my life.

I recently ended a work contract that lasted about 7 weeks, and coincided with a bunch of things, including two other work projects that are finally done. This means I am available to do some smaller projects over the next couple of months in between everything else going on.

The more interesting things keeping me busy are non-work, of course.

Working backwards:
Sunday I returned safe and sound from my first weekend with CalESAR for wilderness search and rescue training. We went to Henry Coe State Park which is east of Morgan Hill, and turns out to be the largest state park in the state (odd, since most people I talked to had never heard of it, myself included). I am proud to say that I did not get sunburned despite the heat, or get any bug bites! I was even able to keep up with most of the teenager trainees. I enjoyed the knot lesson, and learning how to make shelters with just a parachute cord and tarp. Learning the search types was interesting too. We did have regular visits from a coyote who took a bite out of my Tiva sandals (not while I was wearing them, thankfully), and eventually ran off with abditus' hat. The next training is in Yosemite, which should be fun.

Over a week ago, on June 8th, as many of you already know, was the wedding of mercator_7 and psyche7772. What was special about this, aside from two of some of my favorite people tying the knot, was that it was on a boat which was sailed out on the San Francisco bay. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and was a lot of fun being out on the bay, although predictably windy. The ceremony was held at a calm spot in Raccoon Strait. The Bride and Groom looked lovely and a seemed to enjoy themselves. gardengirl_34 made cupcakes for the wedding cake, and I helped out by making name tags for the food and putting together the background music playlist, both which were fun projects.

( This made me think of the wedding... )

Having recently been to jenya_leann's birthday party where inside_edge lead us all in a few rounds of The Birthday Dirge, I thought it apropos to share the lyrics in honor of emberleo's birthday today.

( THE BIRTHDAY DIRGE )

Pick your favorites, emberleo, and maybe you can have a say in which ones are sung to you at your party!

Last night was interesting. The feature of the night was attending the reading and signing of The Areas of my Expertise by John Hodgeman.

John and I were in high school together, and knew each other well enough to be friendly, so I hoped he would remember me. To jog his memory, I sent him a brief e-mail message beforehand to avoid that awkward moment where I would have to explain why he should recognize me when he first saw me. As it turned out, he did receive the message, and it worked out well as he was able to recognize me when the right moment came. That moment was during the Q&A portion of the evening when a woman sitting a few rows behind me asked him if he had played D&D as a kid (he brings up D&D briefly in his book). His answer was essentially no, but it afforded me the opportunity to say "You know, John, we would have welcomed you to the club had you asked." He looked over at me and said "Oh, it's Ragani! Hi Ragani!" then went on to explain that we had gone to high school together. He then asked what character I played in D&D. It seriously took me a moment to recall, and eventually said I think I was a thief. He said everyone tended to say they were a thief if the did not want to admit what they had played, and the Q&A went on.

While we queued for signatures, furycom came over and said hi. I had noticed him earlier, but he had not seen me, so was startled when he heard Hodgman mention my name during the Q&A. It was fun running into someone I knew there who did not expect me, and nice to see furycom.

When it was my turn to talk to John, he got up and gave me a big hug, had me sit down next to him and told me he had received the e-mail. I had invited my friend, Mike, along, who I had asked to take some pictures with my mobile phone. John handed me Jonathan Coultan's cup of brandy so we could each pose with glasses (they had both taken a brandy sipping break earlier while we listened to an excerpt from the CD of the book).



We talked a bit while he signed the copies of the book that I had (one for Mike, which he signed "Thanks for taking my photo", one for my brother which he signed "your sister is koo koo" and one for me which he signed "I am the Pirate King"). He reminisced about our days working on The Pirates of Penzance for the school play, which I had not even thought about as being the main connection for how we knew each other best.

( As for the remainder of the evening.... )

Apparently no one had mentioned to i_am_dsh that I had used her likelness in the famous Vermeer painting, Girl with a Pearl Earring, so here it is again for all to enjoy. Please pass this post along to her so she can enjoy it too.

	LJ size i_am_dsh with the pearl earring...
	Deborah with a pearl earring The photo of i_am_dsh worked so well with this famous Vermeer painting, I could not resist.

Well, the studio/den room in my new place is almost solid boxes and such from my move. Poor psyche7772 has just enough room to get to her bedroom and use her desk, and her cat cannot even make it over to the nice couch we must have moved in just for her to lounge upon. I did not once need to rent a truck, and I had plenty of help. In fact they ranged from my roommates, to a bunch of the guys in my WoW guild (this includes archanglekhaos, of course, who is a pre-WoW friend)!

I had the opportunity to give O her birthday gift this weekend (she nearly cried) and R his father's day gift (he nearly cried too) as well as be there to take M out to get burgers and fries for his 6th birthday and give him his birthday gift (he did not cry, but instead immediately brought the 9 Limony Snicket books back to show his mom). I am going to miss seeing them often, and I know they are going to miss me.

Now for the joy of unpacking. And, I have a deadline. I have to be done by the end of the month, or at least have the house looking presentable by then because psyche7772 is hosting a bridal shower for a friend on the 2nd of July. Any help, even if just to keep me company and motivated is welcome.