the Dalaverse

First of all, I have a new hat, and it is the best hat in the WORLD. You know the Green Bay cheese hats? It's like that, only instead of a big yellow foam cheese, it's a big yellow foam ship. I HAVE A HAT THAT IS A SHIP. It also says GO NAVY, because Laura got it from the Navy football game yesterday and then gave it to me, because really, everybody knows my weakness. It is so awesome.

To repeat: I HAVE A SHIP HAT, A HAT THAT IS A SHIP.

The weekend was rather eventful. On Friday I went downtown to meet my mother at the Barbra Streisand concert. She had just gotten the tickets on Wednesday, and I had a really long week and didn't want to go, but I'm glad I did. Mom + Barbra Streisand = Dala + U2 + 35 years, so she was just on cloud nine (had never seen Babs in concert before). And the concert itself was good. I like Barbra all right, mostly because of "Funny Girl," and in addition to having a voice that has weathered decades better than any other 64-year-old I've heard (I assume because she doesn't tour much), the woman's an entertainer. Also, her 'special guests' -- essentially an opening act, but they did their short set in the middle -- was Il Divo, four extremely handsome, extremely musically capable tenors (one American, one Swiss, one Spanish, and one French, whom I could tell apart from the others only because he had longer hair). They sang "Unchained Melody" in Italian, y'all. It was pretty. And they did a really nice duet with Babs on "Somewhere," which is one of my very favorite songs. I might have teared up a little. hannahrorlove, I remember you being fond of Josh Groban -- I think you'd like this group too.

I didn't get back until late, because the damned Suitland station is so bloody far away, and then I saw both parents just a few hours later. How they ended up visiting just a week after fall break, I do not know, but it was a pretty good visit nonetheless. They brought Ralphie down and he was good fun, although I didn't sleep hardly at all last night because he kept moving around. First he was on my bed, which he could only get up on by jumping on my trunk first (my bed is lofted as high as it'll go), and then he moved around on the floor in different spots all night, occassionally getting up to check the door. Yeah, he's a high maintenance dog. Yesterday we went shopping, trading off dog duty, and I got food supplies and a fantastically comfortable pair of brown cords from Old Navy. Oh, and I finally found a shirt for my Indy costume. Now all I need is the effects, minus the hat which I'm borrowing from John Henry. I'll have to see if the Halloween store has any gunbelts that aren't too cheesy, and if I can't find a whip, I guess I'll try to get some leather cord from Michaels and improvise. But the coat and hat are what I really need to sell it, and I have both of those. Or I will, once I go home next weekend to get Dad's brown leather bomber jacket, which I forgot to ask him to bring.

Anyway. Today we went down to Point Lookout and let Ralphie splash around in the river/Bay, which is still pretty warm. The parents left in time for me to catch the last showing of DMC with Gina. I was curious to see if my reaction to it would be any different, since the other three times I saw it in the theater were all within four days of its opening and I was high on the omfgnewpirates!!!1!. Nope. Even being able to understand and see some of the problems other people have had, it still works for me on every fundamental level, and I still embrace it pretty much wholesale. I refuse to feel guilty about this -- I don't think it makes me a blind fan or an uncritical one. I love it, perhaps not as easily as I do CoBP, but that's part of what appeals to me about the trilogy structure and anyway, I don't feel like getting into all that again; I feel like I've made my case in other posts. It satisfies me as a film and as new PotC canon, and I have faith in the eventual resolution. That sounds kind of defensive, looking over it, but...I have felt the need to be defensive, sometimes.

I'm feeling extremely motivated now to read all the fic I've got tabbed. And then early to bed, because I think I might be clinically dead.