I have, over the past year or two, developed this nasty habit of letting this journal go - not because I don't have anything to write about, but because I feel that I have to catch up; to write that one missing entry before I do all the others that have come since then, and then of course, weeks pass and I feel more and more guilty that I am letting it just sit here with nothing, all because I cannot get one damn entry written to let the backlog out.

The current reason for not having updated is that I still have yet to upload the pictures from DragonCon - mainly because I know that a lot of them are going to require some work (my spiffy new camera doesn't like taking pictures indoors so much; something about the lighting) so they're not just dark blobs, and I really wanted to link to the pictures when I wrote up my DragonCon recap entry. But that's not happening any time soon for a number of reasons (not the least of which is that I am currently trying to write up, and knit, a pattern to submit for actual publication) so I need to stop waiting and just write, because otherwise the words in my head just go away. And I am tired of letting that happen.

First of all, a long overdue update on my dad. He is doing so very much better, especially now that he is out of the hospital and back home. He was discharged from the acute rehabilitation clinic after only two weeks and sent home to continue physical therapy on an outpatient basis. He's walking with a cane, but it seems like that is going to be only temporary, and he's had a chance to play both piano and organ and know that when it comes to his music, he's going to be fine. We are all perusing recipes and finding ways to make things with no added salt and I have decided that this can just be one more part of my own determination to find ways for Richard and I to eat a healthier diet.

DragonCon was fun. A lot of fun. Quite possibly the most fun time I have ever had at DragonCon. We stayed in the Hilton, which meant we had to do a lot more hiking back and forth (since the bulk of the panels and events took place in the Marriott and the Hyatt). But this also meant that we had a nice quiet room in a hotel that was not (unlike the Marriott and the Hyatt) completely full of Con attendees, and thus we could both get at least a little sleep. We got to see Ellen Muth, who played George on Dead Like Me, and a whole host of cast members from Battlestar Gallactica (the new one), and we went to a ton of panels, and we stayed up very, very late listening to silly sci fi/fantasy spoof music, or watching hysterical mockumentaries about gamers, and we watched the parade (Richard's first time watching the parade, actually) and had fun checking out all the wild costumes, and met an online friend of Richard's who turned out to be a very cool graphic novelist, and we ate mediocre, over-priced sushi and bought t-shirts with snarky sayings on the front and overall, it was awesome.

Since we returned it's been back to the usual, mostly, with extra stuff here and there to keep us on our toes. I was really determined to not be in choir this year at all but I am feeling so guilty about bailing on the only other tenor that I have decided to at least stick it out through the end of the calendar year before fleeing (we'll see if my steely resolve lasts). Checkers has now decided to live full-time in the computer room and we rigged up a little 'cave' for her in the bookshelves above the file server and I have decided that if it makes her happy to be a one-room kitty, well who am I to try to convince her otherwise. I got to go with a bunch of other knitters to listen to, and meet one of my favorite blog reads (and authors), the Yarn Harlot, and it was very cool. Richard is giddy about getting to go see Neil Gaiman in Berkely in a few weeks and we just found out that Terry Pratchett is going to be coming to a bookstore only an hour or two away in October and we are both also very giddy about that. The weather's starting to cool down enough to make us all think that maybe autumn is finally here, and even though I know damn well that just when we start to relax and enjoy the cooler weather, it will turn on us and resume being unbearably hot and nasty out just in time for Halloween, I am still pretending that maybe this year things will be different and the summer heat truly has gone away for good.