(Oo-waa-aa, at Smokey Joe's Cafe. Oo-waa-aa, at Smokey Joe's Cafe.) Ooh! One day while I was...

Photos now online:
Anaheim Cosplay and Planning Picnic at Yorba Park (23-Aug-2009)
little_serenity and magi_sammy represented the Decorating Committee.

( Ohhh, what a long day, but a great day it was. ... )

( I learned that ''Sexy Kat Kashi'' now lives in the neighborhood, in the city next door. I recruited her to help with the next postcard mailing... )

Someone brought a strawberry-flavored Gurran Lagann picnic, with handmade decorations. Quite the production, and tasty too. (right)

( Bekka the Alice, our Fan Guest of Honor, was at this picnic. All of our GoHs were represented... )

( I'd promoted the picnic as a potluck affair, and everyone came through with plenty of food... )

When we had the whole place packed up, we tore down the signs. Once everything was loaded, we didn't tell everyone to go home. I just thanked all of them, and told them that I was heading to Carl's Jr. for dinner and it wasn't far away.

As I expected, a handful of people joined us at Carl's in due course, but I received a phone call that meant I had to go resecure someone. Kate's mom's car's brakes had failed, and she didn't have AAA towing, so I went over to make sure the two of them got home safely and the car got delivered safely to Tokyo Automotive. They'd run the brake fluid dry, and hadn't taken care of the car generally, so I was happiest leaving the car there. And even though they were a one-car family, Kate's mom would be able to get back to the auto repair shop via a single bus ride.

Meanwhile, ladymaxstarr and library_lynn were entertaining Stephen at our house. I had another stop to make that night -- I needed to print something out at the office -- and then finally it was time for us to get Stephen back to the hotel.

Thank goodness Melissa was available. (right) I dozed in the back seat.

The reason I wanted to go, apart from to say good-bye to Stephen, was to drop off the new hotel contracts for animelosangeles 7-8 (2011-2012) and an addendum to our contact for 2010. The new paperwork locks in our convention through 2012, and includes a room rate of $109 for single/double/triple/quad -- including the 2010 convention. We're also getting more space, and we're getting more of our earlier space on Day Zero. I'm happy with the contracts, and as long as our numbers don't take a horrible nosedive the convention's in good shape.

...eating beans (at Smokey Joe's Cafe). Just sittin' diggin' all the scene (at Smokey Joe's Cafe)...

Photos online:
Chaz's birthday dinner with Lynn and Maria (26/28-Aug-2009)
LASFS/Aftermeetings part 366: Coral Cafe (27-Aug-2009) et seq.
The photo of library_lynn is from dinner.

My birthday was fairly quiet, this year. Lynn and missmea took me out to dinner at Hans's Homemade Ice Cream, which has various deli sandwiches. (Some quite good.) They're in an old Swensen's Ice Cream location, not far from Bristol and MacArthur, and it looks just like the old place. (Pretty sure I went here with Cytnhia, two and a half decades ago, although most of my Swensen's Ice Cream custom was at the Costa Mesa location which now has a Rite-Aid drugstore.)

They gave me lots of hugs, and a wristwatch, and Torchwood first series, and a book called Candy Freak which I've been enjoying immensely.

Maria stayed over at the house for a night or two, and they and ladymaxstarr worked on getting all of my stuff out of the spare room (which was once my office/store room).

On Thursday night, I went to Coral Cafe, and ran into some out of towners including Jeffrey and Bethany Hulten. I've mostly known Jeffrey as one of the Angelwear Minions, so I've usually just seen him in his capacity as one of Angela's employees. He's married, now, and of course brought his bride to see lasfs. At least, I assume that's why they were in town, I never heard differently... (left)

When I got home that night, I saw the results of the massive excavation effort. Which means that I now have a metric blortload of kipple and keepers to classify. (right)

So don't expect me to get out much, most nights. And weekends that I haven't already committed to something should find me here in the dining room, dealing with all this.

...A chick came walkin' through the door that I have never seen before, at least I never saw her...

Photos online:
Old storage, part 1: Sorting through treasures and trash (29-Aug-2009)
Old storage, part 2: Surplus fabric and projects (29-Aug-2009) et seq.
My elder older sister Dorothy has a big sledgehammer because that's what it takes to get one of the sliding latches to slide.

Grand plans and harsh reality ran smack into each other last weekend, as I met Dorothy to work on clearing out my parents' storage closets. We had a marvelous scheme to toss all of the saleable stuff into one pile, all of the trash in another, and making roundtrips between there and appropriate destinations until the place was empty.

The problem we ran into was that it wasn't just trash, stuff to donate somewhere, and easily-sold treasures in the units.

( We did find a bunch of fabric and craft supplies, and Maria gets first dibs... )

( There's quite a lot of fabric and supplies... )

( And then there's the choral sheet music... )

The challenge in all of this is to be respectful of my mom's feelings without actually bringing it all back to her house. (And ideally without having her come out to the storage place, because that would just slow us down.) So my emphasis has been on giving things away in situations where there's a personal connection -- family, friends, the church we used to attend every Sunday (that's as old as I am -- it was built the year I was born, a year before we moved to California), et cetera.

My intention is to start bringing things to Coral Cafe in Burbank, about 10pm Thursday nights, that are free to a good home. I might alternate fabric and books. Stay tuned (and watch my Foob, if you've got me on your Facebook list).

( The other interesting recent development is I have a Costco card again, and spectacles have been ordered... )