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Good enough to crosspost:
Goths In Hot Weather

Aside from this silliness, Jon and I had a lovely visit to Montreal for the Kinetik festival, in which we tried not to cause our temporary housemates to throw up with all of the loveydovey. Thanks to all three, you were so much fun!

And now we delve into summer. the shop will be shut Mondays after Memorial Day until classes being again.

Chuck Norris Saves a Croatian Bakery. (Worth a chuckle, sure. But an interesting piece of security and sociology as well.)

I apologize, LiveJournal, for doing so little blogging lately. Not sure what to say here now either; overall things roll along. I'll be spending a lot of time in my shop this summer as Sarah sallies forth to do some festivals and shows. Jon and I are still rearranging things in our place, though thank god the construction is done.

I do love spring, apart from the allergies, the road construction, and recalling perspiration. Storm windows, air conditioner wrestling, sunburn, a sudden reduction in the number of pockets that my clothes have now that I don't need a jacket... ah, spring.

Seventh dream of teenage heaven.

It's Monday night at The Saloon. The refresh rate on this monitor (and the halting spacebar) are as bad as the rest of it is good.

Thank you to the resourceful and awesome luno who will be saving my and saracura's sanity by lending us a flat-panel monitor for the shop. the one we scrounged two years ago just died, and the CRT from the basement flickers. can't be set above 60 hz.

thank you also to the lovely, talented and scrappy billmurray8 for making display with me today, too. she rocks.

What a pleasure, to run into minnehahaB in the airport! This trip so far is fine apart from the wait in Denver. But at least Denver will offer me wifi for watching a PSA about global warming.

Woo hoo! Above zero!

Yesterday I had put my housekey between my teeth (my hands were full,) and quickly realized that my tongue was going to stick to it if I wasn't careful.

The streets are still smouldering at the sewer grates, and the steam clouds huddle toward the ground. This too shall pass.

unrelatedly, I dreamed last night that paraselenic was a roller coaster driver.

I try not to use my personal journal merely to shill for my store. But do you guys realize that we are running Fantastic Sales for January? I mean it.

The stuff in the clearance bin, already marked down, is 75% off of the last marked price. Which makes the postcards, for example, nine cents each.

The sterling silver chains, many of them already less expensive than you'd find most places (because we bought them before the silver market started yo-yoing) are 40% discounted. For example, a 24 inch sterling rope chain is marked at $12. With discount, that means it's $7.20. Go look it up if you don't believe me that that's an exceptional price.

In fact, *everything* is marked down at least 15%.

Why? Because we knew January would make a great sucking noise, between the weather and the economic fear, and because January always sucks for retail. But if you want a reason to show up, we're giving you one.

This isn't the end for us, but we do still need to pay our rent. And to make way for new stock; we will have lots of new jewelry for Valentine's Day, since it's just after the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show.

If you're in the mood for gift shopping, come visit me at work. I can personally help you find whichever trinkets, candles, pictures, jingly things, cards, contact juggling paraphenalia, hula hoops, or what have you that might be required. And as a bonus I won't die of boredom! Everyone wins! I'll make up a story for you if you want. But you have to come here to hear it.

Additionally, Jon and I are going to attend the Chamber's Solstice Ball this evening. Maybe we'll see you there. It's a blue and silver theme. Did you know that my "prom" dress was blue sequinned? (At NMH we called it "the Chateau dance" although the chateau itself had burnt down decades before.)

(edited: dammit!)

(edited: I was trying to ask who else was going out to Station 4 to see Oghr play tonight. My hot date is getting leg cramps from not dancing, but is not terribly familiar with his music.)

The spidertangle and the thisc0rrosion have, in fact, landed. I think I have convinced them to go investigate Chamber on Thursday. Mr. F says that if his mom has a hairdryer he'll put his mohawk up.

You should come too.

OK, so sometime I really ought to write a diatribe about the Sisters of Mercy and their smoke machine. I might actually do it. But right now you ought to be at The Saloon, no really, Matt and Sharon are here! do it.

Home again!

snapsnzips has not murdered me for being unable to drive a stick shift or know which way is left or be able to read street signs in downtown Bremen at night. This is because she is a delightful, generous, charming team-player sort of woman... who is very serious about what sort of coffee she needs and when.

We had a lot of fun:
riding a carnival ride that showed us the rooftops of downtown Amsterdam
puzzling out the sushi menu in French (or Flemish)
skulking through Elsinore and recording the creaking of the door hinges
chilling with spidertangle and thisc0rrosion
driving 130 kph on the autobahn (and doing the math)

We had some challenges:
figuring out what Zaventem was
*finding* the street signs in most places (hint: look on the houses, may be across the street in blue and green an inch high)
that thing with the clutch falling out of her gorgeous new car
realizing that Denmark is just really not a service-industry place
buying gasoline (and doing the math(!!))

I need to get the photos off my telephone. It's nice to have a nice warm boyfriend to curl up with too. Cat was sooo needy when I got home!

And now, for the Halloween costumery.

(Oh, and PS eqe, I think your server's down again. no rush but.)

1) Heading to Europe tomorrow for a week. Woo!
2) If you like cephalapods and/or art and reside in the Twin Cities, this is for you: http://www.williamhessian.com/minneapolishunt.html

Dear friends,

Thank you for being awesome.

fayde and her man sinister_dr_x came by to drop off some plastic storage devices which will make our shop storage much, much more better.

ferrousoxide and sleepingzebras managed, eventually, to pierce my ear, the better to display more jewelry... That was hilarious, if a little bloody. Highly piratical. I do believe I have figured out how to make the gun let go of the stud afterward now, by the way, guys, you pull the lever at the top again. I did the other one.

Even more awesome, though, I got to introduce them all to each other. (Fayde and Dr. X had previously met, as you'd expect, but that rarely stops me. As you have probably noticed.)