So my dear cat Liffey is kind of... fat.

 

At last, at last, I have sold my second short story!

The Town Drunk has accepted "Troll Local 157" (a story of which I am inordinately fond) for publication, actual date of publication unknown at this time.

*big huge cheesy happy silly grin*

Tonight on WTTW and tonight on YOUR PBS station too or very soon hereafter and also on DVD. Watch the trailer.

I have loved this play since it's original pre-production album. I can sing every part and often have. I kind of wish I could play the Arbiter because he is such a badass. I saw the touring production of it years ago in the late-80s after it had bombed on Broadway and undergone a lot of changes, and it was excellent.

Love, love, love. The trailer's great; I hope they do the whole show proud.

I saw three condos today. The first one was a big hell no. Nothing terrible about it but nothing special, either. The building was a bit rundown with signs of neglect. The condo was small and the floorplan meh. Weirdly, they'd put marble tile in the teeny tiny kitchen which just made NO sense and seemed faintly ridiculous instead of a luxury upgrade. A new counter would have made more sense.

Second one was better but paint color choices -- oy! Orange and yellow main rooms. A rather icky sky blue for the bedroom. Wood laminate floors (meh) and not very many windows. Better use of space overall, though, and I really liked the kitchen a lot. The assigned off street parking area was roomy and looked very easy-access, and the building looked cared-for.

The third one had no parking but was an elegant and very quiet street with plenty of street parking (boo but still -- that's not unusual for the area). The building was GORGEOUS, a beautifully kept up vintage u-shaped property with lions over the doors, original windows, and personality oozing from its pores. It suffered from Tiny Bathroom with Window in Tub, though and though I really loved the kitchen in this one, too, and the location, the personality, etc., it was overpriced for the condition it's in (it's a foreclosure -- in good shape, not a complete disaster but still would need a bit of TLC, and you have to take those on as-is so you can't make the seller do anything).

Still, it was a fun time, and I think we established the baseline for what I'm looking for. My realtor is a great guy, and we had fun tromping around the area (all the condos today were within a few blocks of each other).

More looking at some point next week.

I had tickets to go see Neil Gaiman speak at the Chicago Trib Printers Row Lit Fest today, but I ended up not going. Instead, I went to meet with my new real estate agent.

Yes, after mumblety-some years of being a happy renter, I am looking into buying.

But I'm not going crazy. I'm looking for a condo, not a house.

My dream condo would be a in an older building (like pre-WWII older) with cool details (for instance, this apartment which is somewhere near 100 years old, has picture rail in the living and dining rooms) in an urban setting (I'm aiming at Evanston specifically and closer to the Northwestern campus and downtown than to The City which is immediatley to Evanston's south) where there would be at least some amenities withing walking distance -- a coffee shop, dining, groceries, drug store, that sort of thing. There is quite a big area of Evanston where if you lived on its encircling residential streets, you could walk to pretty much anything you'd need including clothes shopping. Which would ROCK.

I'd also like a designated parking space, a bathroom with a decent-sized counter and NO WINDOW in the BATHTUB (a weird Chicago-area commonplace).

I don't think any of that is too much to ask.

Now to just go get pre-qualified for a mortgage. *gulp*

I know my British friends will probably just look at me like I'm insane, and I in no way say this as any kind of approval or dismissal of his actual performance as PM, but y'know?

I frequently feel really sorry for Gordon Brown.

It's probably just that he looks so pathetic, and he does all these dumb things, and rather humiliating things happen to and around him (probably mostly of his own making), and he fumbles around, and everyone around him is falling apart, too, and it's just quite embarrassing. So I feel sorry for him.

Come on, you have to admit he does look like a very sad bloodhound.
 

Today is the 65th anniversary of D-Day. My late Uncle Carl landed at Normandy that day and fought all the way through to the end of the war. Having learned this not too long before Saving Private Ryan came out, I sobbed through the entire opening act of that film both times I saw it, stunned that anyone could have survived that nightmarish assault.

President Obama's speech was really beautiful and worth watching. It's only 15 minutes long, but he gives a little history lesson and tribute all rolled into one.

So I just want to say thank you to each and every person, living or dead, who helped plan, train, and equip the soldiers for that day, and especially thank you to those who set foot on those beaches in France so long ago.

Little Missy stops to smell the flowers.

* "In Flanders Field" — though this poem is associated with Remembrance Day in the UK [known as Veterans Day in the U.S. and both days being renamings of the original WWI Armistice Day], it seems to have become associated with Memorial Day [formerly Decoration Day, established to honor the U.S. Civil War dead] in the U.S.

To my mom, who is really great at her job, to my sisters-in-law without whom I would not have my wonderful nieces and nephew, and to my excellent-mom friends, most notably lisamantchev.

And to me, 'cause, gosh darn it, I've raised these cats right!
 

The plan is to see it on Sunday since it's release was inconveniently timed to coincide with Anime Central to which we were all already committed (it's tradition)! I'm only going tomorrow, but all the rest of my film-going posse is booked today, tomorrow, and part of Sunday, so I wait their liberty.

I'm so pleased to see the really brilliant reviews for this and I'm also happy about how well Chris Pine is being recieved, not because I even really know who he is beyond this film but because I was always a Kirk fan. In the TOS/ST:NG wars, I will forever vote TOS (but when DS9 comes into play, that's another matter -- but it doesn't have the one-to-one comparison zazz so nevermind that).

Shatner was always a fun actor to watch and his Kirk had energy and passion and, yes, was easily mocked, but still. Kirk is a great character. I want to see all the rest of the reimagined originals, too, and I am so happy they decided to go back to the basics. Trek's a great world but it wouldn't be at all if those original stories and characteres hadn't so rooted themselves into our psyches.