Day in the Life of an Idiot

How do I answer this? I've been corresponding with a fellow Bleach fan on Tumblr, who emailed me to squee over my fic. She doesn't have an AO3 account, but has been following the fic from the beginning and wanted to finally be able to tell me how much she enjoyed it. All good right? Absolutely! The talk, as it does, has strayed to other things and this morning she wanted to know if I was on summer vacation yet or if I, like her, was suffering through finals week...

...

I kind of hate the answer I'm going to have to give, which is, "Girl, I haven't had a finals week since 1989, and that was THE YEAR I GRADUATED FROM COLLEGE." Hello, your mom is on Tumblr. (And writes smutty ByaRen!)

Awk-ward!

In other news, Shawn and I are settling down over our wedding... a bit, anyway. Thanks to a friend, we have a summer venue. Now we just have to figure out a date. And what to wear. And get the invites out. And...

Tilt.

But, at least we have a place and that's huge. The rest is... well, cake.

It's funny the difference between my folks and Shawn's remaining parent-type relative, her stepmom, who we just visited in Indiana, when it comes to the wedding. My folks are very traditionally excited, with talk about how it might go, what people might wear and all that fun stuff. Her stepmom and stepsister are very reluctant to talk about that stuff, but plenty happy to acknowledge that I need the health insurance and that "it's a good thing" and not a whole lot else. I'm not sure if they're that way because they're aware that it's kind of strange to be making it legal after all these years together, or if it's a political/religious conservatism making it somewhat strained. It's actually not easy to fathom. Shawn's stepmom has a gay son, our stepbrother Mark. So, it's not like the whole idea of queerness is alien and they'll talk about it... just not with enthusiasm.

Ah, well. Otherwise, the visit was nice. One of the things we always do is make a visit to Ogden gardens, which is a really nice community garden/park in Valparasio, Indiana, that has, among its many features, a Japanese garden. It's become overgrown in the intervening years, unfortunately, but this year I was really struck by the Japanese maples and the color of the sun through the leaves:



Don't be surprised if, at some point, my Byakuya references this particular color in regards to a certain-someone's hair. Also, Odgen is big enough that they have room for several features that include this roofed perogla that looks out onto a man-made koi pond:



There's also a "stream" that begins at a waterfall:



There are several wood and stone bridges that criss-cross the stream at various places.





There's also the classic stuff like a red torii gate and stone lantern features. I didn't take very good pictures of those, however, because, like I said, parts of the garden have become very neglected and overgrown. They really need to have their master back, or whoever designed the garden for them. Or at least pull up the Virginia creeper that's over grown the wooden fencing. Even with all these issues, it's still one of my favorite places in Indiana. That at the Blackbird Cafe, which has coffee AND WIFI, and thus, was a godsend during our trip. Also, the barista I flirted with there TWO YEARS AGO, remembered me and she said she thought of me when she'd heard Minnesota passed the right to marry act. So that was cool. I told Shawn that Valparasio is so white-bread that I shouldn't be surprised to be memorable. I'm probably one of the few butch lesbians they ever see. It'd be better if I were a person of color, because then everyone would remember me (ValPo isn't entirely white, but given its nearness to Chicago and Gary, it's surprisingly white.)

That was our trip in a nutshell (and a few pictures.) Now my family is trying to recover. In Mason's case, literally. He picked up some road crud on the way down, and is taking the day off school today because his cough is still so hack-y. Poor boy. Hopefully, a day of rest will be what he needs.