The Culture Channel

Since 2019/the pre-Covid Before Times, I have

Moved to California after over a decade spent in NYC: https://www.tumblr.com/elspethdixon/674554262948397056/reblogging-to-add-or-if-the-six-people-that?source=share (January 2022) -From medical records/mental health in Covid-era NYC to admin at an aerospace-related thing (with a side of teaching baby engineers how to write coherently).

Adopted a cat who then had kittens (don’t worry, she’s spayed now): https://www.tumblr.com/elspethdixon/686454164761526272/plume-plume-with-her-babies-olu-foreground?source=share (for more kitten content click on the “pirate kittens” tag on my tumblr m)

Found mama cat a new home because the Rooster and she hated each other: https://www.tumblr.com/elspethdixon/700590637086588928/plume-settles-into-her-new-home-in-maryland-far?source=share

Moved to a new house (April 2023): https://www.tumblr.com/elspethdixon/714506792327168000/the-rooster-and-his-pirate-kitten-frenemies-adjust?source=share

So, I haven't done too well on my New Year's Resolution to start interacting in fannish spaces again. But I have an excuse!

Behold my excuse:

( Click for wedding photos! )

So, I’ve been almost totally absent from the internet for the past two weeks ^_^. I blame:

- Adjusting to new dosage of SSRIs
- Getting ready for my sister’s wedding* (September 5!)
- Marathoning David Attenborough’s “Life of Birds” because the Fluffle is so hilarious when we watch it (he stares at the television the entire time a bird documentary is playing and occasionally leaps up to paw at the TV screen)
- Making black currant jelly, which I now have eleven jars of (eleven! And I even threw half a jar’s worth away because I didn’t have any more sterilized/prepared jars left)


*It’s not her big celebration, in-church wedding, which will be next spring/summer, but the legal, justice-of-the-peace wedding which she and her fiance are doing now, several months in advance, because they’re both in the military and the sooner you’re legally married the sooner the Air Force takes that into account when giving you duty assignments. So no bridesmaid dress or bachelorette party or shower, but still a lot of travel arrangements and constant phone calls with both her and our parents.

I wore a long skirt to church yesterday morning, something I almost never do, and when I came back home the Stevelet was both confused and mildly distressed by it.

Want rub ankles. Where ankles?! Very fabric. Much confusing. Wow.

(Then, of course, being our little ADD cat, he immediately forgot all about it the second something else caught his attention and everything was fine)

My sister taught our dad how to play Bejeweled yesterday.

He’s already beaten both of our highest scores as well as her boyfriend’s highest score.

My quick-and-dirty finding aid for the one box at [aviation organization]'s archives that I specifically labelled as "Partially arranged and described by [Elspethdixon's real name]" because I knew I hadn't followed the standard format exactly or given enough detail (I had a day and a half in the archive, and spent half that on my own X-15/NF-104 research) and was embarrassed by how unpolished/unprofessional it probably looked* apparently awed my family.

They were all, "It was so detailed!" and "You did that in only two days?" Whereas I was all "I forgot to say how many cubic feet it was! I didn't format the document list correctly for the one folder and set of subfolders I did a document list for!"

Then again, I would be equally clueless when it came to my dad or my sister's jobs. (For example, I know jamming electronic transmissions is an act of war, but I have no idea how you actually do it).



*I haven't arranged and described archival documents since grad school - most of the things I file at work are paid bills, real estate closing documents, or tax stuff, all of which come with ready-made filing systems.

So, my father's new car is apparently the bridge of the starship Enterprise. My parents called me this weekend from the car using the car's built-in bluetooth technology. Apparently, they just spoke as if they were talking into a speaker phone, and my voice came out of the car's speakers, like Picard talking to another ship's com on the bridge.

It's a Volkswagon Jetta with a diesel engine, which I didn't even know existed, but being diesel means he can use it to pull airplane/glider and motorcycle trailers.

(My initial response to hearing that he'd bought a new car was, "because if there's one thing our family needs, it's another motor vehicle - is it going to go in the hanger with the two airplanes?" but then my mom reminded me that my dad's truck is fifteen years old and has over 500,000 miles on it and he actually does need to replace it)

Apparently, car dealership people pretty much ignore you when you drive up in a 1997 dodge pick-up truck with all the paint peeled off the hood. They got much more attentive after they'd run a credit check.

I haven't seen the Hal Jordan movie yet, and am trying not to let movie critic reviews influence me. It's unlikely to be as good as Spiderman 1 or 2, or Iron Man 1, but I'm hoping for at least SnicktBub: Origins levels of popcorn-flick watchability. (My dream, of course, was that it would either be DC's "look, we can make fun movies, too! That aren't just about Batman emo-brooding!" answer to Iron Man/Thor/etc., and be well-written and cinematic and a huge hit so that they'd make a sequel with modern-era GLC characters guest-starring and possibly a non-stripperiffic version of Star Sapphire if such a thing's possible, and also the internet would present me with piles of sketchy Sinestro/Hal Jordan fic on a silver platter, or that it would magically have turned into the "Guy & Kyle's intergalactic road trip of comic hijinks" or "John and Shayera's Grant & Hepburn-style space opera-flavored romantic comedy" movie while I wasn't looking).

What I have done is spend the last two weekends first driving somewhere between eleven and twelve consecutive hours in order to move seanchai's sister from Boston back to NYC (seanchai's sister: "The rearview mirror is completely blocked by all the stuff in the back. Can we still drive this on the highway." Me: "Let me tell you about the 1997 Dodge Minivan I drove during grad school. The one that had no rearview mirror and shuddered when you drove faster than 70mph.") and then (this past weekend) putting all the boxes of books we still hadn't unpacked away. All the comics have their own shelves now, and everything's been put away except the Robert Jordan books. But I'm missing my copy of Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution and the Norton Anthology of English literature, which means there's must still be a box of books sitting in the corner of my dad's hanger. I think it's the box that has my missing copy of the Dr. Strange animated movie in it. Plus the rest of the Terry Pratchett. I'm missing some Terry Pratchett and all of the Lymond Chronicles.

Cross your fingers that it will actually go through on the 2nd instead of dragging out for another week/month. We were originally supposed to close on the apartment February 2nd.

Also, the couple of random days on warm(er) weather we've had recently has apparently lured my parents' honey bees out of the hive, which is nicely reassuring. I was afraid the bees weren't going to make it through the winter due to all the snow.