Photos online: Michelle's Picture Gallery: Consonance 2008 part 1: Friday (07-Mar-2008) et seq.
Culture Day - FIDM movie costume exhibit (29-Mar-2008) Part 1 et seq.
Carolyn's Birthday Party part 1: Hanging Out (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, in some cases by the people who wrote the music. But I think "Don't go changing" is such a lovely wedding 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)

Last weekend colleency organized her annual Culture Day trip for dim sum and the FIDM movie exhibit. ala_mokita was at the Empress Pavilion along with various others, just for dim sum. Some of Colleen's friends came for the dim sum and didn't proceed to the costume exhibit. Craig Miller and Genny Dazzo, and Marv & Noel Wolfman, went for dim sum and the exhibit purely by coincidence. And some Costumers Guild West people who aren't on the Culture Day mailing list came, because Colleen sent the same date for "let's go to the FIDM exhibit" out to CGW as well. She's vice president, you know... Shawn's friend Barry Pike came, dressed as Dr. Jones Sr. from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. (left)

Daughter of my heart missmea was there, in matching pink tank top, hat, and lipstick. (right) It didn't occur to me to go out and take a look at her new car, though! I know she has one, because I saw the paperwork we need to get it insured. Someday I'll shoot her with her new car.

The gaggle of us wandered through the exhibit, which included one dress from Marie Antoinette and several from Enchanted including the "Cupcake of Doom" dress. No, I didn't surreptitiously take any photos of anything -- sorry to disappoint. Closest I came was I gave Colleen paper and my clipboard so she could sketch the stripes, diagonal stripes, and plaid on the dress she was admiring.

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.

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. (Would have been odder still if I'd had business in the neighborhood north of Artesia where the apartment was, of course.)

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 occassionally while Carolyn carried most of the conversation. I sat with my camera on my knee and snapped a botload 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. I'd made it out to the house early in the morning, dropped off my large cooler (iced down and everything) and zipped up to FIDM. So by the time the party started, everything was nice and cold. My usual system of caffeinated soda on the left, decaf in the middle and diet on the right. The Frappucinos were a sleeper hit -- they were buried until water bottles for a few hours before people noticed them. They drank 10 of the 16 I brought. In order of popularity: Caramel, Vanilla, Coffee, Mocha. Nobody had a Coca-Cola, as near as I can tell. And I had intended to pick up A&W Cream Soda but ran out of time -- that's the one request I heard that wasn't in the cooler.

One of the reasons why I do this is because it lets the party have a wider variety of flavors. With sodas only being available in 12-packs, 2-liter bottles, and (rarely) 6-packs, you can fill up a cooler very quickly with only a few options. Whereas, I keep a bunch in stock at my office (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dr Pepper, Mountain Dew, Sunkist Orange, Lipton Iced Tea; Cactus Cooler, A&W Root Beer, Hawaiian Punch, Sprite, Welch's Grape; Diet Pepsi, Diet Coke; Water) and it's a simple matter to pull four cans of each flavor and put together a well-stocked assortment.

Of course, that makes a cooler that's too heavy for an ordinary person to lift. It gives even big burly ol' me a little trouble, too, especially after I've thrown 20 lbs. of ice in it there to chill the cans. (Usually one 20-lb. bag is enough. Reminder to self: buy block ice, not cubes, for the lemonade at the Gathering.)

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 self as "Dr. Vink." I didn't have anything to add to their "Creepy Con" idea, although they were surprised to learn that there's a World Horror Convention. When they got to Naked Con, I had to admit I hadn't heard of anything quite like that. I didn't tell them about Contraception out in Missouri because (a) they're under 21, and (b) it's mostly just a chance for adults to be silly, they generally keep their clothes on. At least that's what I'm told.

When I'd met Julia at pmx last November, I had somehow come away with the idea that she and Carolyn attended the same high school. Nope, not the case at all, they're just about the same age and get along famously together. In fact, 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.

Telling stories and playing Rock Band was generally the order of the day. tenkuudragon arrived 4-ish (left), and when the band came to a set break she joined in (right). Carolyn's dad got a campfire going for us, and as it got gloomier more of us gathered around it. Tiffany and Caroline sashayed and strutted across the patio, in the style Zoolander -- a movie I guess I have to go see after all. All I know is it's a silly movie about fashion. (Maybe a double feature with The Devil Wears Prada sometime?)

There was fresh fruit (left), and M&M's and potato chips. Mr. Ayton cooked cheesburgers and hot dogs for us, Mrs. Ayton brought out a marbled chocolate bundt birthday cake. (The cake and everything that came before it was delicious. All praise to the folks for making the feast happen.

Cleo the Dog came over to put her head on my knee while I was eating, and was my best friend until I finished my hot dog. Then, ever fickle and ever hopeful, she went over to wait to see if Stan would drop any scraps (right).

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. I mentioned telling stories was the order of the day? One of the cards I included said approximately "There was a girl who studied French in college. She said you could have all her old books." This accompanied ten old books of my Mom's from when she was in college. French grammar books, exercise books, Flowers of Evil (English translation), The French People (which was up-to-date when it was published circa 1950), four plays and a book of poems all in French, and a "Teach yourself French with pictures" paperback from the days when Pocket Books were 35 cents each. I explained that the Jocelyn whose name is written inside some of the books (and on a couple of pieces of homework she left in there) married Wil Baden, and the rest is family history.

The other card read (more or less) "I subscribed to Donald Duck, D.D. Adventures, and Uncle Scrooge, among others. I read every issue. I knew who Carl Barks and Don Rosa were. Then one day I didn't have time to read them anymore, and I let my subscriptions lapse." (right) I had stayed up late the night before going through a box of my old comic books and comic digests, pulling out the Donald Duck and Donald Duck Adventures comic books. And Uncle Scrooge too. I explained that "Scrooge McDuck" was created by Carl Barks for the comic books, and was never shown in theaters in the Donald Duck short subjects. It wasn't until Duck Tales was created for television that they ever got around to animating ol' Unca Scrooge.

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 to see 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 (left). Mostly telling ghost stories. I tried telling the one about the Baycon jumper, but telling a true story went over like a lead balloon. So when I took another turn I retold something that I'm pretty sure I read in Tales From the Crypt (back in the E.C. days) about the jealous pianist. Translating a comic book story to the spoken word was a lot of fun. It was hard to balance what should be told outright (and was visible in the original cartoon panel) and what should be left to the imagination. I could have added one final line: and as his hands grew hotter, he started to scream.

I mentioned the grande-format chocolate bars. I had a s'more with two freshly toasted marshmallows and a chunk of the thick chocolate bar between my graham crackers. This was decidedly a mistake. The double portion of marshmallows meant extra gooey goodness, squoze between an especially unyielding chocolate stratum. So the excess marshmallow goes out the far side as I bite down on the near side (right). I resolve not to have any more s'mores that night. I could possibly have hazarded a single-marshmallow sandwich to have less mess, but I could hardly guarantee myself no mess. Next time I head out to a campfire, I'm picking up a bag of the Ghirardelli Minatures. The squares are already exactly the right size and shape.

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!