Bleary summary

I've got to do something to break my blogging block. Normally I wouldn't hesitate to resort to bulletpoints, but those seem so played out. So instead let's just ramble.

Saturday went well. Dad wasn't able to break away from babysitting his stepgrandkids long enough to swing by the house so I made the trek down to Avondale and was rewarded for my efforts with pork belly pastrami from the Pork Shoppe. (Why did not one around here think of this before?) He made himself scarce for a bit so I could catch up with my stepmom, who's gotten everyone worried with her recent falls. It may be simply a question of not lifting her feet from the pavement enough, but when you're over 65 and diabetic, everyone worries regardless.

I got back with less than an hour to spare before bears began arriving; monshu was very gracious about that and even hung around long enough to meet some of them, as did our houseguest. Definitely went better than last month, and I got to introduce Chicago Scruff to Aviations and clintswan to Rothmann & Winter's apricot liqueur. I also introduced a couple of Baltecs into my system, which added to the fun at Touché later. I ran into an old buddy and his hot and friendly partner, and through them met a charming couple from the Quad Cities. With any luck, I'll get some of them to stop by next time.

I caught a bit of the shambolic first game of the Cards-Phillies matchup at my stepsister's and Scooter's nasty ribbing about it (this is what lifetime Cubs fandom does to people, my friends!) firmed up my resolve to catch Game 2, which renewed my faith in our postseason hopes to the point where I took time off work yesterday for Game 3--and then felt it slowly drain away as we blew one chance after enough to take a lead in the series. Still, I dragged myself in an hour early in order to leave in time to catch the start of tonight's game. As much as I want us to win it, that might turn out a bit awkward since then it means Game 5 on Friday night.

Because Friday night I will be back in Sister Bay. I'm looking forward to this trip but I'm also anxious about it because we don't have accommodations for Saturday night. Given how quiet the place we stayed was this time last year, I didn't worry about making reservations well in advance, and now I'm scrambling to find an affordable solution which doesn't entail going down to Sturgeon Bay that night or sleeping in the back of Dad's truck. God, I hate planning vacations; I just want everything to be taken care of and be great and not cost an arm and a leg.

That's what vacations at my parents' timeshare are like, but not this year. My sister has ambitious plans about gallivanting all around the Northeast. So whereas I'd be perfectly content with spending the whole week in a place on the Jersey Shore and making forays into Philadelphia and the Pine Barrens, she wants to combine that with several days in Boston and an excursion to Maine. monshu's not keen on joining us and I don't blame him. We'll be working on our own little getaway to San Francisco just as soon as I survive Wisconsin.

Homo homini lupus

Why did I do this to myself? A discussion of another suicide linked to anti-gay bullying reminded me of a recent incident where a public suicide attempt resulted in bystanders chanting "Jump!" and filming it on their cellphones. A Google search failed to turn that up, but instead it led to a page on instances of the bystander effect which introduced me to yet more examples of human cruelty that I simply could've done without.

A few days ago I started reading Steve Szilagyi's Photographing fairies (based rather loosely on the historical events at Cottingley) and I've been racing through it. Today just before the shuttle arrived at the gate I came to the part where the narrator finds two young girls ripping the heads off fairies in order to spare them a crueler fate at the hands of their fellows. It's an image I haven't been able to shake all day.