Short update, due to tired

I've had rather a long day due to several things:

--Staying up to almost three this morning, watching the last handful of episodes of Princess Tutu. Yes, I watched a magical girl anime: it's incredibly well-done, light-hearted and sweet, but with enough dark elements to balance it properly; it's got fairy tale tropes all over the place, it's beautifully drawn and animated, it's got ballet in it (proof of how well-done this anime is: the ballet steps and hand gestures/mime are clearly drawn from real ballet), it's got a great soundtrack that blends all sorts of clips from classic ballet scores and classical music. WOW!!

And it's got an awesome, creepy, string-pulling villain who, if you think about it, would give someone *else* a run for his money when it comes to messing with people's lives. It's one thing to mess with people who are pretty much fellow players in the world you exist in. It's another thing to mess with people in a world that *you* created...

--Appointment with my therapist and another very good one: I'm shocked at how well I've been the past few months, in spite of everything that's going on.

--Going to a talk by Patrick Madrid, at St. William's, this time on global aging; his sense of humor is still as crazy as ever and he can still take a dry topic and make it interesting. I wished I could have told him some of my stories from the trenches and told him how I'm already seeing the effects (ie. the Mrs. Tollivers I've had to deal with). And his crazy wit, which borders on playful religious satire, still manages to blow right past those with Sense of Humor Deficiency Syndrome:

He was giving a series of talks at a parish which had a statue of Our Lady of Fatima in the church's garden, along with three little statues of the three seers of Fatima kneeling before it. Patrick Madrid turned to his assistant and said, "Wow, Catholicism is such a great religion: not only do we worship statues, even our statues worship statues!" (Referring of course to the common misunderstanding that Catholics worship the images of the Saints/Our Lady) He used the story as an ice-breaker for one of the talks he was giving at that parish, and later some wonk got up during the Q & A session and pointed out that this was proof that Catholics really do worship "graven images". Buh?? :: Laughs::

Tweets and Twitterings from the Matrix Refugee

• 03:09 Decided to finish watching Princess Tutu before I attempt to watch Evangelion 1.11. I hate having more than one anime going at once. #
• 03:36 Gotta love a happy ending! :: Goes looking for the DVD set (used) of Princess Tutu on Amazon, decides to hold off till tomorrow:: #
• 03:36 Good night, sleep tight, don't let the ravens bite... #
• 11:37 Gahh... Woke up late & had to get breakfast downtown #
• 15:14 Hooo... another very good appointment with my therapist, am holding off till after Easter for the next appointment #
• 17:14 Finished reading Roadkill: it suffers a bit from flawed editing and wonky pacing, but it's still an exciting read. Now reading The Historian #
• 21:12 Just back from a talk at St. William's, by Patrick Madrid: sure hasn't lost his crazy sense of humor (& ability to attract humorless duds) #
• 21:18 Yay! Dad got the VCR/DVD combo to play nice with the TV!! Now we can watch The Irish R.M. at St. Paddy's Day!! #

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"What an irritating little boy..."

I used to think that the tendency towards bubble-wrapping ones children against criticism or correction was something that happened elsewhere, but not in my area. I'm used to people screaming at their hyperactive munchkins when said munchkins are flailing in my lane because the parent didn't get them a box of Sugar Blasted Choco-Rox. Today, I saw with my own eyes the root cause of the speshul snowflake behavior which I've seen among teen authors of Mary Sue fics.

This obstreperous little six year old boy was coming through my lane: I knew the kid was going to be a pill from the moment he showed up, because he lobbed a can down the register, right toward me and he kept trying to scan things as the cashier is still finishing up scanning the previous order. Then, when the order was actually being scanned, and the mother pushes the carriage down to me to put the bags in, the kid would not stop climbing on the carriage, and then he almost rams me with it, complete with this baby-eating grin on his face. Finally, I told him to please stop playing with the carriage, and I looked him right in the eye as I did so, giving him the "I mean business" look, which wiped the evil widdle smirk off his face. Cue the little urchin running to his momma with the waterworks going. Cue the mother telling him it's all right, "that lady's just mean." And then she goes crying to my boss about that mean bagger who yelled at her kid (when I didn't even raise my voice: if anything, it dropped to a chilly, softspoken deadpan ala Thomas Gibson as Aaron Hotchner in Criminal Minds). Ugh.

No. "That Lady" is just trying to do her damn job, which would be easier if you would actually *DISCIPLINE* your little monster. I'm sorry, but telling your child that everyone who corrects them is "mean" when the child is clearly out of line is not doing them a favor. He's ramming carriages into grocery workers now, what's he going to do ten years from now when he's driving and he gets charged with vehicular manslaughter? Are you going to tell him that the judicial system is just "mean"?!

And I'd been minding my own business imagining the possibility of an anime cosplay-style staging of Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado". Think twenty-something guys costumed like bishounen singing that opening chorus number and girls in schoolgirl uniforms singing "Three Little Maids from School". It would be a hoot! (Though it's likely been done already...)