Dandelyon's Worlds

Yesterday started with a trip to the vet--one of our cats developed nasty black stuff coming from his eye, so we took him in, and the other older cat, just for a check-up, and the kitten we're keeping. Amitiel has an eye infection; the other cat seemed fine to the vet; the kitten is female after all, and has ear mites. And it was no surprise that there was some evidence of fleas. So now all the cats have been treated with the stuff that kills both fleas and ear mites, and we have to put antibiotic gel in Ami's eye for ten days.

We had planned to go to Pride Fest after that (Well, originally we'd planned to go instead of that, but black stuff around the kitty's changed our plans) but My Angel started to feel ill at the v et's. So I ended up doing house work and starting a painting, since I kept going back and forth as to what to do with the story I'm working on. And the yard work we'd planned to do didn't get done.

Today we did get to Pride Fest, and I found some jewelry to match one of my work outfits, and we got a new Celebrate Diversity bumper sticker, so the not even "new to us" car could once again have a proper rainbow on it. Then we got back in time to do just a little lawn mowing before darkness and rain fell at the same time.

I finally got word on the story that the music-theme anthology was holding; the editor said he finally had to admit he had only so much room in the book, and he hopes he'll see it in some other publication very soon. So, it's out again to a different editor, and I'm hoping he gets his wish. Oh, well, I'm really pleased with the story, and it wouldn't exist if I wasn't hoping to get into that anthology, so I'm still ahead. Disappointed, but still ahead.

Now it's time to head to bed. This week I start the three month temp job full time. So, naturally, this week we have another Torn World Muse Fusion.

I love the creative challenge, but it's not as much fun when I can't even start until I'm tired from a very full, very busy day at work and have to get to bed in time to be rested for another very full busy day at work. And this job is a very busy job. So I don't know how much I'll be able to write before I have to head to bed.

Still, I'd love to hear from each of you as to what brand-new Torn World things you're most interested in reading.

You're welcome to tell me other stuff you want to see, too.

Milwaukee has a number of ethnic festivals. Many of them are held at Maier Festival Park on the lakefront, but not all. One of them is in Cathedral Park, which was just a step outside of where I worked for ten years. This year, I missed out on watching the set-up all week, then rushing out on Thursday at lunchtime for crepes, or seafood, or any of a number of different foods, with honey-roasted nuts and lemonade, for a preview of the things in the different shops.

Over the years, some of the vendors have become friends, both those seen just once a year and others who have shops in Milwaukee.

It became a tradition for My Angel and I to go at least once; more often two or three times over the course of the four-day festival. Bastille Days is a street festival with music, various acts (mimes, firedancers, people danced in fancy outfits from the time of the French Revolution, break dancers, caricaturists, and more). On Thursday Night they hold a footrace called Storm The Bastille. Knowing that the race makes escaping from the festival difficult, we had planned to go on Friday.

Alas, My Angel had mis-counted one of her meds, missed a day or two of it, and was consequently not only feeling poorly, but substantially dizzy Thursday night into Friday. (That did clear up, once we visited the pharmacy on Friday.)

OK, so we decided to go on Saturday instead. We headed out around dinnertime, ready for music, beignets, and lots of window shopping.

Beignets are a traditional French fried pastry, typically doused in either powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar. I had only had beignets previously in New Orleans, when the Worldcon was there. But that's a different story! Here are beignets (both sorts) and musicians on the main stage. There were other musicians in other locations as well, primarily on three other large stages, set in the middle of streets blocked off for the festival.



Like all festivals, there was stuff to buy:





The pictures of the globes (I want to say "worlds for sale"), fancy glass, and fanciful lanterns were taken Saturday night; the only day we'd planned to be there. Unfortunately, while throwing away some trash, My Angel tripped over a picnic table, banging up her shoulder, knee, both calves, and her face both above and below one eye. Two kind men helped her stand up, a friendly food-vendor gave her a bag of ice, and I picked up a few more beignets for the road, before driving to Walgreens for some humongous bandaids, and heading home to play doctor.

The view of the Cathedral is roughly from where My Angel fell. It's got scaffolding up--another thing I'm missing since I'm no longer working--daily seeing the workmen repair the tower. Which would be cool to watch, so long as I got to stay safely on the ground!

Despite her scrapes and bruises, My Angel felt enough better this afternoon to insist we go see the rest of the festival, so off we went again.

Every year they have artists painting a mural, live, in the early days of the festival; it can be fun to watch. Here is a photo of this year's completed mural, taken late Sunday afternoon. This year also featured pirates; I would have been tempted to take close-ups, but they were all, visually anyway, badly in need of baths--they looked as much like chimney sweeps as pirates! But I did get them taking down their encampment.



All in all, we had fun, and ate too many beignets!