family matters

No, not the show.

For the past two weeks we've had my wife's uncle visiting us from Philadelphia, so there's been a lot of out and about with him, not to mention ice cream and wine and cheese parties, which we almost never have. He's 75 years old, and his birthday is nowhere near now, but that didn't stop us from throwing a little birthday party for him. My daughter made two cakes, although only one was for him. The other was for our 26th wedding anniversary, which is much closer to now than his birthday is.

The day he left to go back home was the same day my brother invited us over to a mini-family reunion at his house, much more centrally located on LI than mine. Which is good, as my other brother came from New Jersey, with his sons and other 'young persons', to paraphrase Pooh-Bah. My camera battery was uncharged, but fortunately I had my Blackberry, a device foisted upon me by my job but occasionally useful nonetheless. The only hard part was figuring out how to get the photos downloaded from it, but for someone with my skill set it wasn't very hard.

I sent my story, CHOT 2, off to my editor, mainly because she liked the first one, but maybe she'll put in a good word with my publisher if she likes this one. Haven't started work on anything new yet. Still haven't anything workable for the Color of Silence theme, plus I've had some work issues occupying my time when I wasn't doing family stuff. If my millions of loyal fans would just buy my books and make me rich, I'd get more writing done. Links for everything should be <-- just over there, on the left.

I found that my local library has considerably more Gilbert & Sullivan than I had first thought, they shelve them under Opera. So I've managed to see Patience (very enjoyable) and Princess Ida (not so enjoyable), and am now halfway through the Gondoliers, which is also rather pleasant. I'm afraid I have little taste for tragedy, so I don't imagine I'll enjoy the darker works as much as the lighter ones, but fortunately for me they did mostly light ones. I must say, though, it was rather odd to see the part of Archibald Grosvener, supposedly the world's most beautiful man, played by a man who wasn't particularly attractive. That may have been the joke, but I somehow doubt it. On the other hand, I have seen Sandra Dugdale in two productions, as Patience herself, and Casilda in the Gondoliers, and I do just love her voice. In Patience she played the role of the bewildered innocent perfectly. Plus I like her accent, and she's very pretty. I wonder what she's doing now. To the IMDB-mobile, awayyyy!