Dandelyon's Worlds

I slept in a bit today, and ended up going for a later brunch with my daughter than we'd planned, to celebrate her birthday, mother's day, and getting her IB Diploma. We went to a place called Roots, where the waiter assured me he would check all ingredients carefully, and seemed knowledgeable and competent to do so. It was a very pleasant meal.

Then she wanted to hang for a while, but she had no idea where she wanted to go, so we went to Target, where I picked up some stuff for me and she looked at a lot of stuff for her, but put almost nothing in the cart. She's still thinking about what she wants for her dorm room--linens and towels and the like--and still thinking she might lose weight before having to buy college clothes. In the meantime, I have new, definitely secular (non-holey) underwear to wear, which isn't exactly exciting, but will be enjoyed nonetheless.

In writing news, we have gotten a few comments on the anthology, one with some interesting writing links, and instead of writing, I've been rereading a couple of books of the "can't put it down" variety with that technical advice in mind. The reading is going slow, and I'm not as sucked into the story as usual, so while I can't do a nice, sweet and succinct post about what I'm learning, I'm certain I am learning. Whether it's enough to let me level up again in the writing process, well, Muse Fusion is next weekend, so I'm hoping my creative processors, so to speak, have it sufficiently processed by then so you can see some results.

And this weekend is also Bastille Days...maybe I should go get a new phone sometime this week so I can take pictures...

I have work tomorrow, and I am planning NOT to be too tired come Friday, so I should go wash this sweat off and get to bed.

My picture today is my cool new art from djinni 

I went by the animal control center to check for my kitten; as expected, he wasn't there. I've been checking their website every day to look at the photos, but there were a couple with no photo in the last couple of days. I figured it was a long shot at that point, but checked anyway.

Then I drove by the vet's place to drive around the neighborhood a little. When I stopped to ask, the guys in the tiny auto repair garage near the vets said they saw my kitten today, a few blocks from there. They even showed me where, though he wasn't around this evening. I gave them one of the pictures I'd printed with my phone number on it. At least they said he looked healthy and energetic. I'll go back tomorrow and try again.

The fish store had just sold their last tube of silicone; I could get some at the hardware store, but I want to be sure to get a fish-safe brand. And supporting the store is a good idea too.

Once shrunk to ion size, the lettering on my first attempt at this donor-appreciation icon was too small, so I fiddled with that today.  You can see the revision here.

Edit:  Well, no wonder no one could read it at "ion" size!

And I got news that one of the stories I'd recently submitted was rejected. The e-mail starts, "it's a really good try, and we like the world you have established, but..." the rest, though short, was great feedback and probably exactly what I'd have decided if I'd had time to ignore the story for a month and re-read it fresh. I'll do a little more research and rewrite it.

Then, when I got to Walgreens, which doesn't normally sell the Red Mtn. Dew, they had a sale on Pepsi products with a huge new display that used the Code Red boxes to spell NFL. So I bought most of the L, to the consternation of the staff, who really hadn't planned on deconstructing the display (as I left, they were filling in the hole, so the display wouldn't collapse on anybody).

And the pharmacy was busy, so I can call in my prescriptions and go back again tomorrow. And get more soda. They're making money off of me, so I don't feel too sorry for them!

Oh, and I have a job interview scheduled for Monday.

So here's hoping that scoring the soda at Walgreens is the beginning of a trend.

Hob dodged three sets of feet, two shopping carts, and one stroller, and collared the gremlin in one large, brown hand. Black Friday should be called Black and Blue Friday, if you asked him. Not that anyone did, of course.

The gremlin started screaming, and he stuffed the critter’s mouth with a discarded advertising flyer. Then he borrowed the cashier’s ‘Puter Power tape (designed to mark boxes that had been paid for if they were too large to stick in a bag) and quickly secured the creature’s hands, feet, tail and mouth, then handed it to one of the temp brownies to dispose of.

The temp brownie was still wearing shreds of Circuit City tape. “You better make sure that the manager here leaves enough milk and cookies tonight!” it grumbled. “Or else.”

“What?” Hob spotted another gremlin, working to squeeze it’s way into the cash register, grabbed it and taped it too, then had to jump out of the way as the cashier, a chubby teenager with pimples and just enough facial hair to make him look untidy, reached for the roll of tape.

“We don’t get our pay, these gremlins will be back.” The temp stated the obvious. And it wouldn’t be only the temporary hires releasing them into the store. There was a reason Circuit City went out of business.

Hob shoved the second gremlin at him. “Get these two out of here and get yourself back in here pronto, or your association with ‘Puter Power will be ended before you can get paid—or take rightful retribution, either one.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” The words were disrespectful, but the temp brownie winked out of sight, and then back in time to grab the next gremlin before Hob could get to it. Pickings had been thin since the Circuit City managers had slacked off on the midnight milk and cookies custom.

But the temp had a point. The gremlins were just as hungry as the brownies, and as a result this Black Friday had been one of the worst in memory.

He looked around for the manager. The poor man was trying to help a woman with a crabby baby—ah, he could help with that. A moment’s magic made the store smell a bit fresher, and changed the baby’s cries to smiles. The brownie tossed the used diaper to make a face at him, but shoved it in to the plastic bag it was carrying, then took several more trussed gremlins from other workers and shoved them in with the smelly thing, tying it shut and vanishing to dispose of all of it.

Hob leapt to the manager’s shoulder and whispered, “milk and cookies, milk and cookies” but the man paid him no attention. He turned to the next customer in line. And the next, and the next, while Hob scrambled to keep the temps working, trap gremlins before they could do too much mischief, and do whatever general trouble-shooting he could do in between.

The manager was still at the customer service desk a half-hour after closing, looking harried and exhausted despite all Hob and the other brownies could do. he rushed the other human employees out as quickly as he could, then went to grab his own coat.

The brownies gathered around, watching his every move, and Hob whispered in his ear again. He headed toward the small refrigerator, and his cell phone rang.

Two of the temporary hires started to pale at the edges, and Hob leapt to them, putting them hand-in-hand with two of his steadiest regulars. Another temporary worker had snuck up to the small refrigerator, and had a jug of milk out, was getting ready to pour it into the bowl.

This one he cuffed roundly. “It doesn’t count if a human doesn’t set it out, fool!”

The manager snapped his phone closed and headed for the back door. Hob had only a moment to act, and the man just wasn’t listening to him. He ran and grabbed—not the milk, it wouldn’t do for the man to spill it—but the empty bowl, and set it in front of the man’s foot.

Bang—clatter! The bowl went skittering across the floor.

“Oh, knew I was forgetting something.” The man bent to pick up the bowl, set out the milk and cookies, adding a half-box of doughnuts and a handful of hard candies. “Everyone worked hard today.”

The brownies hopped up and down, rubbing their tummies. He was barely out the door when they fell upon their rightful pay.
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For new friends, you can find more of my very short stories here and my ongoing, serialized novel, Fireborn, here.

And to all my friends, I hope your Friday-After-Thanksgiving (whatever you choose to call it) was less hectic than Hob's!

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!