givin' you highlights like Sun-In

It's summer, and things have been ghost-town quiet at work for the past few weeks, but do I take the time and use it wisely to do creative and mind-expanding things like writing blog posts? Nopity nope nope nope. I park my butt in front of internet TV and allow my brain to quietly bubble out of  my ears. June's almost over and I have almost nothing to show for it, post-wise, so here, in a blatant overcompensation, are the highlights from the past month.

--Things are going forward on the moving-to-Boston front. I've started getting lots of emails telling me that registration's coming up, and I need to schedule meetings with professors and advisers, and I've been trying to write everything down in my new you're-a-grownup-stop-writing-your-life-on-Post-Its daily planner. A carload of stuff has been packed up and trucked off home, thanks to Mom, so that's a bit less that'll have to fit in the moving van in August. We have an apartment, and therefore I'll have some place to move to, so that's good.

--My poor kitty has been coughing up a storm lately so we took her to the vet (a REALLY AWESOME new vet--of course we find one right before we move away) and it turns out that the poor sweet thing has asthma, and possibly pneumonia or some other unpleasant chest problem. So we're getting her medicine, and hopefully she will start feeling better soon.  

--Mom's visit to Philly was too short, but still fun. I took her to the big Central Library on the Parkway (which she'd never been to. For shame, mother! You grew up in Philly!), we bopped around Center City, we ate Vietnamese food, and generally had a neat-o time. And then she helped me lug boxes down the stairs and load them into her car. Thanks, Ma!

--A tornado hit West Philly the other day and tore Clark Park to pieces. No joke. It wasn't a twister, but tornado-force winds and golf-ball-sized hail hit my neighborhood for about twenty minutes and did a ton of damage. Enormous trees got completely uprooted, and some just snapped in half. There's still a big ol'tree lying across the path at the head of the park. Ridiculous. I'm just really glad that no trees fell on the apartment or anything!

--I got paid forty bucks (thanks, Craigslist!) to paint the inside of a little wooden box and inscribe it with some pithy sentiment for a guy who was then going to give it to a friend. I got the impression that it was a lady friend, and the gift was an attempt to get lucky; I did a good job (even if the color scheme was purple and yellow--his choice, not mine), so I hope he got laid. Or not, if it was a platonic deal. Whatever. It's always neat to earn money for doing something fun.

--That forty bucks went part of the way towards purchasing tickets to the Celtic Fling in Lancaster PA. It was at the same place that hosts the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire every year, and the same groups of people were in attendance:
GROUP 1: Nerds. Pseudo-goth and Dungeons-and-Dragons type people who get REALLY into throwing on about eight hundred pounds of costume (read: any combination of lace, corsets, leather, buckles, and those shirts with the laces and floppy sleeves) and role-playing in weird accents for a day. These are the people for whom there are stalls selling Hobbit ears, and furry tails, and who knows what-all else. I know I shouldn't scoff, but I do. I lost count of the amount of unfortunate cleavage I saw, and I am frankly surprised that we only saw one accidental nipple exposure.
GROUP 2: Large rednecky Republican types. Maybe not so much up on their history, but definitely up for the type of event that involves beer, swords, and smoked turkey legs. Again with the scoffing. I can't help it.
GROUP 3: Tourists like A and me, there for the spectacle but not really sure what was happening most of the time.

It was stiflingly, blisteringly hot on the day that we went, so that was miserable, but we got to pet the "royal hounds" (the sweetest, loveliest greyhounds. I want one. Or twelve) and a "baby dragon" (a tiny, sleepy lizard. I want one of those too), and we got to see the band Solas perform for a bit, which was wonderful--I really like them. So we had some fun, but by three-thirtyish we had each sweated away about a quarter of our body weight, so we decided it was time to go.

--I only have a two-day work week this week, and then on Thursday I am leaving for a week-long Vacation-With-A-Capital-Vee and I am SO excited.

That about does it for June--hopefully I will have exciting vacation stories and many more things to talk about in July!