the Dalaverse

Mom: Hey, 'The Queen' is on! ...Oh wait, it's that '20/20' special.
Dala: So it's the actual Queen?
Mom (disappointed): Yeah.

The queen was actually in residence when we were at Windsor. I mean, we didn't see her or anything, but she was occupying the same general area. That's pretty damn impressive, I think.

Also, my dad met Fidel Castro when he was a boy. Totally true story. Dad was always mouthing off so the teacher gave him extra work, and he wrote an essay on Cuba (this was before the coup, I should mention). When Castro came to Washington, Dad got to shake his hand.

This is my second favorite Dad story, my favorite being the time my grandfather saw the president jogging on his way to work and started to approach so he could shake hands (apparently it runs in the family). Secret Service knocked him down, breaking the jar of soup Grandma had made for him. So the president apologized and gave my grandfather lunch money. The best part of this story is, I can never, ever remember which president it was. I should seriously get it tattooed on my hand.

Mom's stories...she has a weirdly detailed memory and can remember what everyone was wearing in her schoolgirl stories. I'm partial to the hearing about how would always get up really early and knock about the house, waiting for someone to wake up and pay attention to her, and once drank a bottle of cough syrup during one of these early morning jaunts. She tells lots of stories about her sister cutting her doll's hair off and stuff, and how they weren't allowed to have Barbies because my grandmother didn't like them. Grandma Libby's best story by far is how she interviewed Johnny Cash when she was a reporter. She said he was a gentleman and very nice, despite the fact that he was a country singer (she loathes country music).

I've never met anybody famous ::pouts:: Well, I met Neil Gaiman, but all I did was tell him my name so he could sign my book. That's starstruck for me, man. And I did sit down in Kevin Barry's Pub to chat with Harry O'Donoghue, but he's only famous to people who live in Savannah and like Irish music. Still, it was pretty neat - I told him how much I loved 'It'll Be Alright On the Night' and he played several songs from it after the break. Really nice guy, really fun night. Tina and I had dinner at Kevin Barry's (they make the best potato soup I have EVER had), then went on a haunted trolley tour in one of the most haunted cities in the country, then went back to Kevin Barry's for utterly fabulous pecan pie (with a chocolate base, not that weird jelly shit) and live O'Donoghue. Then we thought we were gonna get mugged on the way back to the car, but fortunately we did not. Goddamn, I could do with a pecan praline.

I'll finish with one last story for which I was actually present. Many Thanksgivings ago, my dad and my uncle Howard were having an argument over whether Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia or New Jersey. Dad knew he was right because he went to Woodrow Wilson High School and is thus in a position to know, but Uncle Howard is incredibly stubborn and would just not believe it. They seriously went over this for like an hour (it was pre-Wikipedia, in fact I'm not even sure my aunt and uncle had Internet access at home). Uncle Howard had to leave early the next morning - he takes the train into New York for work - but at some point, somehow, he had uncovered the truth. When we were leaving to go home, we found a piece of paper stuck to the front door that read '[DAD] IS RIGHT.' Dad laughed and said, 'Howard may hate to be wrong, but at least he admits it when he is.'

I...do not know what brought on this burst of chatter. But here is something cool: Brad Pitt donates $100,000 to support gay marriage (Mom will sneer at it not out of any moral objection but because she is Team Aniston all the way. I might have more sympathy for Jennifer Aniston if she tried to be a tad more interesting, but alas).

Oh, and why are the dragon naming rules so damned stringent? I tried to name it Daine or Numair for like ten minutes. Then I picked Rikash, which is more appropriate anyway, but it would only accept Lord Rikash. Which makes it look like Lord Rikash and Lady Alanna rule over the dragon land, and that is just a fucking creepy image. Alanna would not put up with Rikash's backtalk or his stench.