Don't go changing to try to please me. You never let me down before. Don't imagine...

Photos online: Michelle's Picture Gallery: Consonance 2008 (Mar-2008) et seq.
Culture Day - FIDM movie costume exhibit (29-Mar-2008) et seq.
Carolyn's Birthday Party (29-Mar-2008) et seq.
Photo of Chaos (chaoswolf) and Sean (selkit) is from their wedding at Consonance (right). The music at the wedding was performed live, usually by the people who wrote the songs. But I think "Just the way you are" is such a lovely love song... and it's a waltz, isn't it?

The big news in this upload would be that Mish went to Consonance and brought back a few photos. So there are now some more "Michelle's Picture Gallery" photos here. She's getting more practice, but please remember Mish, the flash isn't a cure-all!

Here's one of the ones I like -- she got a nice shot of mdlbear, Father of Chaos, at the wedding reception (left). Yep, little Chaos has grown up and is now married to her Canadian man. She's still living in California, but I hear she might emigrate to the frozen north.

It seems like only yesterday she was wandering the halls of Baycon in a chainmail bikini... (right)

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( Last weekend Colleen organized her annual Culture Day trip for dim sum and the FIDM movie exhibit. )

After perusing the costumes, including marveling at the embroidered swastikas on the Nazi lingerie, a number of people went down to the Fabric District to shop. I actually had business there as well, but I needed to get moving. I zipped in, looked at Michael Levine for the sandal fabric (it's all gone), went around the corner and got the turquoise dragonfly fabric for library_lynn (left) and hit the road.

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I had to get down to Redondo Beach, with any luck not too late for divine_sage's birthday party. She lives in the lumpy part of Redondo Beach, i.e. southeast of Artesia & Aviation. It was odd being back in the town that we lived in for four years, ending 11 years ago. (Would have been odder still if I'd had business in the neighborhood north of Artesia where the apartment was, of course.) I've been in the general vicinity -- Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, and of course El Segundo and Westchester -- but this was almost walking distance from our old apartment. It was near missmea's old middle school, that's how close it was to the old neighborhood.

The party was announced as having a 2:00 pm start time. I got there about 3 o'clock, which all things considered was not bad. When I got there, magi_sammy and midnight_rocket were playing guitar and drums with Carolyn singing, as she'd received the game Rock Band as a birthday present (right).

Also attending were neo_serenity, hyper_sam and daoutlaw. When the band changed participants, I sat and talked to Julia and Carolyn (left). Well, mostly I listened, and Julia interjected occasionally while Carolyn carried most of the conversation. I sat with my camera on my knee and snapped a boatload of pictures of them talking. Carolyn's a two-handed talker -- she's practically Italian -- and had to put down her soda can sometimes depending on what she was trying to say. You could start here and keep clicking on the viewing-size pictures of Julia (with the Cactus Cooler) and Carolyn (with the Sunkist Orange) and it practically makes a stop-action movie...

Oh, the sodas. ( My contribution to the party was my semi-traditional Big Cooler o' Sodas. )

Anyhow, Carolyn and Julia had stayed up late the night before, watching old Are You Afraid of the Dark? episodes on Youtube and talking about silly convention ideas. ( They shared them with me, including a rewrite of an episode to feature my own hairy self as ''Dr. Vink.'' )

Nobody from RBHS was invited to this party. Ashlee Jones from RBHS turned up anyway (right). We learned that there was another birthday party planned, for her school friends -- this party was for her cosplay friends. (Which I guess means I'm an honorary cosplayer. I'm certainly closer to that than a high schooler.)

Ashlee stayed with us all afternoon and evening, and when she did finally go home she told Carolyn "They're not freaks!" I gather this realization came as a bit of a surprise to Ashlee. Ashlee was friendly enough, and we learned that she and Carolyn are sometimes mistaken for sisters at school. Maybe because of the hair?

( Telling stories and playing ''Rock Band'' was generally the order of the day. )

As darkness closed in, the multitudes gathered clamored more and more for divine_sage to open her presents already. Carolyn scored with three new Disney coffee mugs (left), a "Tinkerbell" purse and some handy gift cards. I gave her some old books from my mom, some old comic books from my own garage, a new book and some chocolate.

( Since this is my LJ, I'll tell you about the books. )

Good thing Carolyn likes old books. One person's cast-offs, another person's treasure. The new book we got her was The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community by Diana Glyer. It had arrived in the mail that day. Carolyn was surprised that the return address was "Professor Diana Glyer" (not Amazon.com or something like that) and delighted to see that the book was inscribed to her, wishing her a happy birthday (in French).

( The remainder of the evening was spent around the campfire, with marshmallows and graham crackers and huge Hershey bars )

Carolyn told us The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, for the benefit of those who'd never read the original text. Later the conversation turned to fairy tales, to lighten things up -- I told the one about Mr. and Mrs. Gates not inviting the Wicked Fairy to Billy's christening, which is why all Windows products are cursed.

All in all, a very enjoyable long day. I only dozed off once or twice... but I was glad I was there. I like birthday parties, and I don't get invited to very many of them -- this is shaping up to be a banner season, what with Wendy last month and Stephanie/Adriana next week after the Gathering!

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In other news, I think McCall pattern 2149 in XXL will do for my shirts. So I'm getting ready to put some fabric, buttons and the pattern in the mail to two or three people who I'm comissioning shirts from. Can you put a shirt together, and haven't mentioned it to me before? Think about what you'd charge me for such a job...