* My youngest brother has a little sister. This means that not only do I have the smallest feet in the house (at an oh-so-dainty size 9    ), but I am now the little one for the first time in almost fifteen years.

* I’ve finished my internship applications – the last one will go in the mail on Monday. For the record, that’s eight of them:
     In Gretna, LA (suburb of New Orleans, I think) – Pelican Publishing
     In Peterborough, NH (a long drive, I know) – Cobblestone Publishing
     In Atlanta, GA (something a bit different) – Bas Bleu Booksellers by Post
     In New York, NY (not my preference) – Harcourt, Harper Collins, Penguin, Random House, and Simon and Schuster

We’ll see what happens. I’ve talked to real people (exciting!!) at Cobblestone and at Bas Bleu, so I think those are very real possibilities.

In other news, I went and saw Constantine with Tae, Elf, and Pug yesterday. John Constantine’s bunch of oddballs amused me, though plot – and explanation – were lacking.

PS – Is there anyone besides Pug who doesn’t see the background pattern on this page? He made some comment yesterday about my taking it down…but I haven’t touched it, and I still see it in Firefox, Opera, and Internet Exploder – er, I mean Hexplorer – ahhhh….yeah, that one. So now I’m curious.

Categories: home, internships
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Spent the last two evenings at the Choctaw Christmas Concert to support the big little brother. All went very well – Jackie has some nice soloists this year and all the musicians sounded great. All those songs are such old friends – and who knows what the concert will be like next year with a new choral director. However, I suspect that the Madrigals will introduce him/her to Fruitcake, like it or not, so that’s all right. What’s Christmas without Fruitcake??

I was thinking about it last night, and realized that I haven’t been to one of Graham’s concerts since I graduated – they all happened before I got home for Christmas/for the summer. So it’s been since he was a sixth grader – I was proud to see he’s learned how to open his mouth since then. Well, actually, I was just proud.

It’s always odd to go back to Choctaw – a lot of memories tied up in that old auditorium. I had my first middle school concert there (which is a story or two in itself). All the high school concerts, all the solos, all the Fruitcakes. Playing for Miss CHS – and doing the spot. Watching my friends in all the school plays – and let’s think of the good ones like Is there a Comic in the House? Sitting through senior honors night three years in a row because Mads had to sing for it. Not to mention all the stupid assemblies over the years. But let’s stick with the good memories. There are plenty. Also realized that I first saw Choctaw’s Christmas concert ten years ago when my fifth grade class was one of the school groups who went to see it during the day as a field trip. (I was on the other side of that in 10th or 11th grade; we didn’t do it every year. ) I remember that the guard girls who play toy soldiers while the band plays Babes in Toyland struck a particular chord with me that year – that was my first year as a Nutcracker soldier.

School spirit is an odd creature. In a lot of ways, I don’t give a flip about Choctaw and I still can’t think about the words to the alma mater without at least rolling my eyes (”…and for her, our alma mater, we will fiiiiight aaaand diiiiiiiee…” Totally not kidding.). But the place has aspects of which I am very proud to have been a part of. One of those is IB, of course. Its music program is another.

Categories: home
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And I am so glad to be home!!

I know everyone wants to hear everything, so I’m working on that . It’s a work in progress – in fact, there’s only enough of it there now to be barely worth posting this note! So if pages suddenly appear and disappear as I work out the kinks, don’t be startled.

Edit 12/8/04:
As some of you have noticed, I’ve started putting pictures in. They’re being finnicky, and I’m not sure whether it’s my lazy simplistic coding or Furman being stupid (I’m using the webspace I’m allotted there, which means when they go down, the pages go down. Plus this program has its quirks, and most of them are dumb.). So if the photos won’t load….uhhh…hit reload a few times or try again later. My apologies!!

Edit 8/4/06:
As probably no one has noticed, the above link doesn’t work anymore, due to the fact that I, uh, graduated and no longer have access to the university’s web space. You might also remember that I never finished the page in the first place. However, you can find my pictures online at Kodak’s EasyShare Gallery (seemed easier to upload them there and order prints than waiting for the kiosk at WalMart to spit out hundreds of prints). You should be able to see them without having a log-in or anything. There’s five sets:
Tour of Ireland, Scotland, & England (our first two and a half weeks)
Stratford (the next two weeks)
London (five weeks)
Free Travel (the last two weeks)
And a supplement: a few pics I got from friends.
Someday, they might get to Flickr, but don’t hold your breath — you know me better than that! (That would also take months’ of upload space on Flickr unless I start paying, which isn’t likely in the near future) But if you ask, I’ll happily show you my (two volume) scrapbook.

Categories: home, mmm, London!, travel
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Seriously! Blow on it: Bonnie. Put it under the faucet: Charlie. Stick it in front of a fan: Frances. And Ivan’s lurking out in the Caribbean.

So of course, the fact that hurricane warnings have been issued for my area, and the fact that the airport is closed for Monday potentially gets in the way of my flying out of here on Tuesday, since Frances has been moving at the approximate speed of a golf cart. Solution? Dad and I are leaving early tomorrow morning and driving to Georgia, where we hope to find something interesting to do for a day before heading up to Atlanta to meet my travel group and our transatlantic flight to Shannon.

I will try to post here once in a while when I get internet access, but don’t hold your breath. Especially for the first couple of weeks, when we’ll be moving about quite a bit. I’ll be in Stratford for about two weeks starting Sept. 26, and in London following that, so I may have a chance to post then. E-mail is always welcome, provided you don’t expect an immediate answer! Love to you all!

-Lady Vulcan

Categories: home, just the weather, travel
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Here it is at last. You guys have been so patient. Well, sort of.

As you’ve all noticed, the site has a new look! I’m very excited about this; it’s been so bare for so long. Feedback is most welcome. The background started out as ripples in sand, but after grinding it through Photo Shop’s pattern generator it now looks more like crinkled paper. I rather like it, though, so it stays – at least for now. Obviously the right hand side of the title banner looks bad – I have an idea of how to fix it, but can’t promise that I’ll get to it before I leave on Tuesday. This is a blog, not a business, folks.    (And a good thing, too, I know, I know.)

All right, you’ve waited long enough. Here we go.

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Categories: D&D, home
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Make sure everyone in your family votes! And if they’re dead, do the right thing, and give your dearly beloved a helping hand!

Oops, I’m not in Chicago, am I?

Ahhh, we love primaries. When I went, the people working the poll outnumbered the people who were voting, about four to one. When the woman at the check-in table gave me the cute colored ticket for an independant ballot, she said “One ticked for a no party ballot. You never party, do you?”

Very funny. Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. Gah.

Of course, then I was passed along to the man giving out ballots. He takes one look at me and says “Did I teach you?” Instead of telling him I’d never seen his mug before in my life, I asked where he taught. FWBHS, apparently, so I told him most politely that I was a Choctaw grad. It was a weird trip.

And now, we present the current version of the CSC Quote List! (I just added over three whole pages to it. Gosh, you guys are funny. I wonder if we voted on the best quote, if we could inspire ourselves to new and crazier limits of insanity…oooh, scary.)

Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion of our recent D&D campaign!

Categories: home
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Where was I? Ahh, yes, exploring the second floor of Prideth Manor.

After Petra poked around the guest bedrooms, there were two hallways to choose from, so the party picked the one to the left. I mean right. I mean my left. Errr, yeah. (Which way was it, Elf? *evil grin*)

Anyway, this corridor led to Duessa’s office. A coven of night hags were conferring in the outer office, and though they managed to infect Petra and Sheva with a nasty disease or two, Hamere was easily able to heal them.

The jackpot was found in the inner office. Desk drawers held (besides a bag you didn’t want to stick your hand into) coffers of gold and there was loose change under the couch cushions, but the whole family fortune was squirreled into hidden compartments in the columns holding up a pair of small statues. The desk also held the deed to the manor and a ledger. Petra snatched a page out of Nadrak’s book by claiming the deed, and Nadrak carefully noted the absense of massive quantites of money (and the deed) in the ledger. Petra also found a carefully hidden key.

Exiting the office, the party noticed that a new door had appeared around the corner from the top of the stairs, but Petra and Nadrak wanted to check out the last corridor. It led to the library. Heeheehee, yes, the library. The self-defending library. The bookcases shoot books at intruders, and the books then explode on contact. So much fun! And ya know, after a hydra and a dragon, it was the books that took certain characters way down in hit points….    Must have been War and Peace, as Elf pointed out. Petra finally threw a fireball at the bookcases, causing them to shoot flaming books, at least at first. Then realizing that setting her new house on fire was probably a bad idea, she turned her dreamstone into a kiddie pool, had Hamere fill it with water, then Nadrak turned himself into a baby elephant in order to spray the water on the fire.   

When Nadrak and Petra were finally done in the library, Sheva’s curiosity concerning the new door could finally be satisfied. Behind the door was the staircase to the third floor. Reaching the top of the stairs, they heard voices. One voice was expressing doubts about the loyalty of the monsters on lower floors, while another urged trust in Duessa and especially Archimago, the great wizard. A third broke up the argument.

Since Sheva was still enchanted to look like Duessa, she bluffed her way in, claiming that Nadrak, Petra (holding Sheva’s sword, which is bigger than Petra is), and Hamere were new allies. She fooled them all, even an older woman who turned out to be Duessa’s long-time best friend, Mette. She wanted to draw “Duessa” away to talk privately, which of course worried the party. Petra slyly snuck a dagger onto Sheva, who was otherwise unarmed. However, all Metta had to say was that she thought one of the company that Duessa and Archimago had put together was probably a spy, and offered a suspicion or two.

However, just as Mette and Sheva stepped out of Mette’s room, the real Duessa stepped out of a room across from them. Confusion and battle ensued, leaving three of Duessa’s friends dead (including Mette). The party teleported out as soon as possible.

After putting some distance between themselves and Prideth Manor, the party camped for the night, and in the morning, proceeded to another location that the bandit had put on their map: an abandoned temple. It was much the same as the one Tae and Nadrak saw and circled around early on in the adventure, but this time the party explored. Petra found the secret stairs down to a basement level, where they found the final four knights who had tales of being tricked and captured. They were grateful to be freed and headed back toward Miralana’s capital. The party headed back to Prideth Manor to take care of their unfinished business.

Categories: D&D, home
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Oooh, the last time I posted D&D tales here was almost a month ago…I’ll continue from there. Theresa had just joined us, so we had some character shuffling!

After an encounter with a group of bandits, the party spent the night in an extra-dimensional space, conveniently provided by Nadrak. However, Tae was called away by her deity during the night (that’s the goddess of Oreo cookies for those of you who hadn’t heard this fairly recent development). Fortunately, her goddess is lenient, and allowed her to call a couple of old buddies in to cover for her: an old friend from her novice days, Hamere (Theresa), a cleric of Pelor, and an old friend from her rebellious finding-herself days, Sheva (Liz), a bonafide whirling dervish. Needless to say, Nadrak and Petra were decidedly surprised to discover Tae’s disappearance and meet this pair when they left their shelter in the morning.

The new and improved party warmed up by beating the tar out of a second bandit party. One escaped, but another was captured, and they got some information out of him. He essentially told them that Archimago was organizing bandits to harry anyone who looked like a danger to their plans (i.e. adventuring good guys). He also pointed out a couple of pertinent locations on their map.

Later that day, the party finally arrived in Spens, where they found a very large hydra guarding the entrance to the main city and to Sir Edmund’s castle. However, since the gang had been windwalking the whole way, they bypassed the beastie for the moment in order to fly in and have a chat with Sir Ed and his daughter Aemelia. She was very glad to see the party, and told them all about the beast situation. For one, someone was definately censoring the mail: letters from Miralana to Spens got through. Letters from Sir Edmund to Miralana got through. Letters from Aemelia to Miralana did not. Obviously someone knew who was running the place and who was senile. For another, unknown to Miralana, a few knights had gotten to Spens, and there had been more than one beast. The first had been a fairly young red dragon, who had been dispatched by a knight called George. Unfortunately, George was still camping when a white dragon flew in the next morning, so he got et. This dragon was slain by a pair of knights who arrived a few days later. Unfortunately, it was replaced by a pit fiend, and when they attempted to take it down the next day, they did not survive the attempt. Aemelia has no idea what happened to this monster – one morning it was just gone, and this eleven-headed Lernaean pyrohydra was letting no one out of the city.

Aemelia graciously opened her potions cupboard to the party before they went out to tackle the hydra, which they did…in three rounds. (Like I told them them during the next session, I was amazed – they were doing nearly 100 points of damage to my poor beastie per round.)

From her spot on the town wall, Petra found the magical device that had been summoning the monsters and broke it, though they suspected to find one last monster in the morning. They were, of course, right.

Before they took on the big red dragon, the party had a chat with Sir Edmund over breakfast. He told them all about the fight he lead fifty years ago against Queen Mab and her trusted lieutenancts (so to speak), Archimago and Duessa. He doesn’t know quite what Mab’s fate was, though. He’s heard all the stories about getting trapped in caves or oak trees or being banished to another plane, but all he knows for sure is that she was turned over to a trio of powerful spellcasters. Two have died of old age since then, but the third, is still alive. Santhymum Treehollow, an elf, is currently living in Riverman’s Junction, an odd little town in Orant, the country to the south.

Highlights of the fight with the red dragon included a shot to the eye by Petra and Hamere’s Harm spell, which took care of the last hundred hp.  

After Nadrak checked on the progress of his dominated butler, the party made a little detour to Riverman’s Junction to talk to Santhymum. After being sufficiently quirky, she revealed that she and her fellow mages had trapped Mab in a mirror where she could see and listen, but not speak or act. The mirror had been carefully guarded in a museum for the last fifty years.

Santhymum also gives the party an Amulet of Dimensional Anchor that can be turned on or off.

The next destination for out heros was a spot the bandit had marked on the map as Prideth Manor. After talking to a friendly groom, they were met at the door by a pair of vrock. The bone of contention on this floor was the magic mirror guarding the staircase. It wanted the party to go flip some switches, and some of the party wanted to bypass such nonsense. The mirror was not very smart, however, and was easily convinced to show an image of the last people to pass through it. One of them was Duessa herself. The clever solution was to enchant Sheva to look like Duessa and bluff past the mirror. On the second floor, Petra crept about, poking her head into doors. She found rooms with monsters, rooms with nobody, and a room with a buzzing, which turned out to be an ebony fly in a little box with a fair bit of gold. Only Sheva was with her at this point, so they split the loot and said nothing to the others.

We broke at this time, and so shall I before my fingers fall off.

Categories: D&D, home
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…because everything needs a sequal these days.

Below is, as you might guess, part two of my travel stories from last month. Includes pictures!

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Categories: home, travel
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Went to see Camelot at the formerly community college last night with my family, and quite enjoyed it! (It also gave me an opportunity to wear a gorgeous bracelet I recieved for my birthday.    )    ) It took me a bit to warm up to the actors, but I liked them more and more as it went on. Camelot isn’t Elf’s story, but it is mine. Has been for a long time and probably always will be, though I can certainly understand her desire to soundly slap some sense into Arthur, Gwen, and Lance. I was rather disappointed in their Merlin, who was entirely unconvincing, but (a) He doesn’t stick around long and (b) I’m a little sensative here anyway – I’m something of a Merlin fan. Oddly, they chopped out two songs after they printed the programs: “Then You May Take Me to the Fair” (a favorite of mine) and “Fie on Goodness”. But of course, it was plenty long enough as it was. I don’t think there’s such thing as a short musical.

I was amused to recognize Guenevere – the actress graduated from Niceville HS the same year we graduated from CHS, and I remember seeing her at All County and All State Choruses with me from 8th grade on or so. We were never really acquainted, but a familiar face and name. She did a lovely job.

Unfortunately, they were having some sound probablems – the actors’ microphones would blip off now and then. And more unfortunately, there was an old battle axe (Dad’s phrase, he was next to her) two seats away from me. She kept up a running commentary, and then at the end of the first act, she had the ever-loving gall to comment to her husband that she had just been dozing off the whole first act, never seen anything so boring in her life. After all she had seen this when Robert Goulet played Lancelot! (This would be the original Broadway production, circa 1960.) If it had been me sitting next to her, I’d've had some choice things to say to her, believe me. Ah well.

Following is the beginning of my travel journal from this month. It rambles a bit, so read at your own risk.

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Categories: Harry Potter, home, theater, travel
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