Chicken’s Favorite Thing

Chicken and her friends went to an anime convention this weekend. On Friday, I lucked out– her friend’s mom drove, while I stayed home with a tired Squish who, on top of feeling under-weatherly, had also received her last round of shots all in one arm. (Mate said it was the darnedest thing–after years of dealing with Zoomboy and Big T, who had to be full-body restrained while pale, shaking women approached with needles, Squish simply sat there. She watched the nurse stick the needle in, and then turned to her with an indignant, “Ouch! That hurt! *pause* That REALLY hurt!” And that was all. *shakes head* Yeah– that’s my Squish!)

Anyway, yesterday, I got to go. It was lovely, on some levels. I got to visit the Guilded Bat people– they sponsored my signing two years ago, and their shop went under shortly after. It was lovely to see them, and I gave them a signed copy of Rampant and thanked them for believing in me when no one else would. I pretended not to notice their pained contemplation of the fact that, here they were, back on the con circuit again, at the mercy of a VERY young crowd.

And it was true– the crowd WAS very young. I met three of my students, (who all were nice and admitted to knowing me) and a couple of former students (ditto!) and cruised the vending floors, and then…

Sat down and knit. Chatted with a mother whose daughter was there, dressed as Dead Pool. (I got props from mom for knowing who that is!) I told her about some of the stuff she didn’t know– Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog and Repo: The Genetic Opera and, in general, pretended to be MUCH cooler than I actually am. I watched the Anime Music Video presention, since Knittech and I have accidentally addicted me to the power of music+completely unconnected images, and it was REALLY awesome. I managed to find one of my favorites on line, but I could NOT find one done to a remix of Red’s Ordinary World which just broke my heart. (I also couldn’t find one done to a BIZARRE Scott Baio song about The Wrong HOle that I’ve been sharing with some of you… VERY funny– but also NSFW!)

Anyway– it was fun. Mate took Chicken, one of her friends, and Squish today–and I am home, making beans for my mom’s family git-together, later on today. I’ve gotten NO writing done (partly because I’m still rabid about Talker and Bella… yeah, yeah… stress gets me nothing but eye-strain… tell my channel surfing fingers that when I sit down to write and end up staring at Goodreads like my willpower alone will make somebody like my writing!) but I’m willing to relax a little and let my writing batteries recharge. I’ve got two short projects before I dive into research and Jeff’s book, and then, I’m heading straight to Quickening (around December, I would imagine.) And, yanno… those plot bunnies keep a humpin’, but Chicken’s delight? Well, she’ll be sixteen in a couple of weeks. Smiles like that one at the beginning, captured on film? Them’s rare things.