Unbeknownst to most, my hubby has been elected President of a strange and reclusive group of parents charged with raising funds for the school band. Not quite in the big leagues like the PTA and their weekly cookie blitz, but nevertheless important to supplement the meager income the State throws at the public school band programs. You can just about wipe your ass with that. To wipe anything else, you need Band Booster parents--either that or force the kiddies to hawk those five dollar candy bars that taste like a tragic marriage of lard and the dregs of an off-brand chocolate company's cooling vat.

How did hubby get elected in the first place?

That's simple. I wasn't there the first band booster's meeting. Had I been in attendance, this never would have happened. When they were electing officials, I could have distracted him with some subtle, but effective, sexy moves or promised him a meatball sub if he settled for being a stage hand. But no. Let him alone and he goes on a power trip. He says he did it because no one else was volunteering to do it and he called me to say he 'somehow' wound up Band Booster's President and this meant he had to learn to gift wrap a basket. Like any President, you know. Cause the big project for the Boosters is the Christmas Concert Silent Auction (I won't call it a Winter Concert. Political correctness can suck it.)

And so for the last two months we've built up to last night, the Big Concert. It was also our new band director's first concert. All but one of the Booster parents are new. Hubby is new at being a president. See where this is going? The Land of the Noobs is what we have here. No one knows what they're doing at all. First time we asked the director what she wanted to raise money for and how much she needed, she had no clue. We had to coax it out of her and I managed some of that during the first ice cream feed last October. Inch by painful inch. This is a tense woman. Her neck veins pop out if you look at her wrong. I could probably have her weeping for mercy inside 5 minutes if I wanted to and she reminds me of some of the roles Sally Fields has played--those really high strung, sort of screechy older women that are all tendons and bared teeth. Last night at the concert I think she doubled her Ritalin daily intake to get through it. It put her in a slightly reflective mood. At the intro to one medley, she suggested that we'd find ourselves recognizing certain strains without knowing why, that might take us back 'in life.' I wanted to ask how many lives. When she said this, the kid on kettle drums looked at her as if she'd flipped her gourd. Had his jaw dropped any more, we would have heard a faint 'thum' sound from his chin lightly striking the drumhead.

And so it went. Intermission came and we parents swung into high gear. Nearly everything was bid on and we cleared over 3 grand, which isn't bad for a bunch of noobs. The director looked happy at the end and it was nice to see her smile in a way that didn't look forced. Oh and I did something I wish I could do all the time. I scored two huge carafes of free Starbucks Coffee just by asking for it. Charity rocks! There was so much donated, we had some left over despite a constant line at the coffee table during intermission. Go Starbucks!

Oh and now my car smells like a fresh brew.

Plus I have to drive into Seattle tonight. How am I going to manage? My car smells of coffee and I'm heading into the Capital of Coffee. Why do I have the feeling I'm going to part with a lot of cash in the very near future? Grand Mocha here I come! With Peppermint? You betcha!

Now it feels like we can get on with the normal chaos of the holidays with The Big Auction out of our way. That and Nano is behind me. I won this year and flopped at the Drawmo challenge I started. Oops. Maybe I'll do better when I'm not the First Lady of Nerdom next year.

I feel: relieved

My latest Drawmo thingie! I copied him from a drawing I found on another blog because I couldn't not do something with that wicked grin. He's been a good lesson in handling both color and contrast--and hasn't done my libido much harm either. Maybe the next Luce I do will actually have depth now!

I feel: busy

Is it November?

Wow I just now noticed.

But judging by the ads we skipped it and went right to December because in the eyes of the retailer Thanksgiving is an unsightly wart upon the saintly skin of Christmas merchandising. It's ugly and has no monetary purpose unless you're a turkey farmer and/or Sarah Palin. But I tend to have a lot of love for Halloween anyhow and that's mainly because there are few social pitfalls to fall into. And even those don't have spikes at the bottom. How do you mess up a day when you can call a house that's been uncleaned since Obama took office 'zombie headquarters'? Hell, Good Housekeeping might even do a spread and feature your mold smeared dishes as a front page attraction with instructions to other housewives on how they too can achieve the same look for just pennies. Got cobwebs? Don't knock 'em down! They add atmosphere! Did you get in a fight? Great! The blood's a nice touch on the floor. More atmosphere! Put the knocked out teeth in a jar for maximum Halloween brownie points. And even if you're a Halloween Scrooge and pretend you're not home while the kiddies pile up on your front porch plotting revenge, the worse that can happen is some eggs and toilet paper. No one will disown you.

But now we rush headlong into That Time.

This means I have to clean the house. Mop up the blood and banish the spiders. My black cat is once again just a black cat and not a harbinger of fur covered doom. I have to bone up on the perils or regifting and the higher math necessary to calculate the price and type of gift to give based on what they gave me last year, my budget, their budget, the phase of the moon on Dec 25, their decor, tastes and habits and whether or not they ignored my birthday this past August. Then they must do the same for me. Somewhere someone needs to create an algorhythm for this mess. On Halloween you toss candy at kids and jump out from behind bushes in Grim Reaper masks. On Christmas I crack open Advanced Physics for Giftgivers and hope I don't wind up disowned by someone who gives expensive presents.

Thanksgiving's okay. You eat, fall asleep and go home. Sometimes you end up the host and have to do the housecleaning thing, but overall it's not bad. I have these fancy wineglasses that I got at Arby's during a holiday giveaway several years ago and I swear you can't tell. It's my little secret. No there aren't pictures of the Arby's Oven Mitt etched on them. These predate the Oven Mitt anyhow.

*note*

Do not link me to porn of the Arby's Oven Mitt and the Hamburger Helper Glove. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Thank you.


Well that's about all. That and Nano and Drawmo. I'm behind on the Drawmo and doing good on Nano. About 35k.

I feel: sleepy

I know. Wow, huh? Yes the community I swept under the rug last year is actually running this year and we got ARTZ posted and everything! It's fun! I vowed to keep Drawmo alive all month and I'm busy keeping that promise so if you signed on last year, jump right in this year and go for it. You know the nice thing that the community is so small right now everyone will get a chance to show off their draws and snippets because I'm extremely blase about the ol' LJ cut. Me and the cut never saw eye to eye anyhow and as mod, I pretty much moon the whole concept. In other words your art doesn't hide! So if the 50k Nano isn't much of a challenge, add this drawing challenge to it! 50 drawings in 30 days!

Boy I don't know about you but my loins just girded big time. I got to shut up now and draw. And write.


DRAWMO!

I feel: artistic

Awesome response to last night's Lucius art post! Thanks everyone for looking and commenting! You not only gave me a boost but Lucius too, who is flattered that so many people are willing to admire him even when he's metaphorically shitting bricks. He has asked me to feature him nude some time in the future as he likes how my last practice work with the pelvic area has gone and figures I'd want to showcase it.

Totally switching gears here, I have to do a couple weird things this week. You've probably all been to fundraisers at least one time in your life, right? You got your fancy-schmanzy $2,000 per plate charity drives in exclusive locations featuring star power and money flowing like a river and then you got your basic church bazaar type fundraiser for a new roof or to send missionaries to Timbuktu or whatever. Our church has them too. Only, being Scientologists, we have to be freaks about it and have themes. This weekend's theme is Star Wars. Last time was Cowboy/Western. Another time it was pirates and then Braveheart, with kilts and the whole nine yards.

Yes I said Star Wars.

In other words, a mini Star Wars convention. When I went downstairs after work tonight, an entire Luke Skywalker costume was hanging by a window and someone got little kiddie Jedi costumes for people's squirts. Awwww. And light sabers. Someone's found one of those retractable ones and everyone with an iPhone is downloading the famous light sabre app and duking it out on breaks. So I'll be throwing together something too. But what? Darth Vader, Luke, Obi Wan, Han Solo, Princess Leia are taken and maybe Chewbacca too. Beth saw the way I fit into my jeans and suggested Jabba the Hutt.

. . . .


Yeah, she's grounded. For life. ;)

The cheap way to go would be to just dress Jedi fashion or as one of those creepy red-eyed things that kidnapped the robots in the original movie. All you need for those is a monk-type robe with a hood. Easy. More expensive is Beth's other idea of all three of us going as Stormtroopers. Uh yeah. You pay for it kid! And I'm fat. Who ever heard of a fat Stormtrooper? That'd just look bad. And no I'm not tall enough for Chewbacca--people would just go 'Oh an Ewok!' if I came in shedding brown fur. But I do have a black 'death' robe from a few years ago and I could do the Darth Maul thing if I find a mask. What do you think? Do you know if they sell the double sided light sabre he used?

Yeah he'd be a fat Darth Maul. Shit, I have to pick something here and NO Jabba the Hutt! Just . . . no. Not unless I can talk Richard into dressing in drag as slut!Princess Leia.

I feel: geeky

Part of gearing up for Nano inevitably involves making Nano art and co-currently involves making fun of Lucius at the same time. What appears to be a bloodthirsty ghoul at thumbnail distance proves to be only Lucius under the throes of the worst case of mental constipation known to both Wizardkind and Mugglekind combined. Either that or he simply can't remember where the 'g' is on the keyboard. At any rate, he's doing Chris Baty proud, if Baty decided to water down Nano enough for the likes of two-fingered typing wizards like Luce here.

See you on the flip side, Lucius! Don't, er, strain yourself now. Christ.

Tags: art, lucius
I feel: I do NOT look like that!

Note to self: While celebrating a weekend of 'alone cuddle sexy time' is perfectly warranted while daughter is away, please verify that living room blinds are closed and door is shut before chasing naked hubby through house screaming 'I'm gonna get your ass and ride it to the moon!'

I feel: ass-tronomically embarr-assed

The fanartist in me had an epic shitfit yesterday over the fact that I haven't posted Lucius artz in eons. According to the timeline of the films, our favorite villain is in Azkaban subsisting on half-rancid gruel, tepid water and absolutely no hair care products. I understand Narcissa later became active in prison reform just to change this wrong, since she was the one who had to detangle Luce when he came home again. Poor Cissy.

But the artz!


( Back here cause it'll make you scroll and then you'll get pissed off in comments, prompting me to respond 'get bent!' which will, in turn, start a flame war so profound it'll cripple LJ's servers for a month, thus getting me banned. I can't take the risk. Sorry. )

I feel: going to the beach!

I have lived! The All Snot Fashion Show is officially shut down except for a few determined stragglers who haven't been knocked out by doses of Nyquil and a vigorous nose blowing technique. This means I don't have to use the miserable mood Lucius! Yay!

Bad news is, very few people will ever see this glad announcement, let alone comment to tell me how they spent the whole weekend sacrificing goats to speed my healing--the mark of true friendship indeed. No. I hear crickets here in LJ land, folks. People are following the latest Golden Calf and that idol is called Facebook and Twitter and like Moses, I stand pissed off on Mt. Sinai with the tablets in hand while the jerks I brought over across the Red Sea (and parted it for them and everything, ingrates) turn their backs and gawp at the first shiny thing to come along. I'm overlooking the Tablet right now, searching for loopholes that'll let me smite your asses into next week for deserting me and not lavishing gushing sympathy on me while I lay dying, instead of enjoying hot, moist nookies with my beloved hubby.

It's. Not. Fair!

*rant*

If you all don't come back, I'll create a special filter EXCLUDING Facebook and Twitter junkies and only they will ever see my Lucius artz ever again!

Hm.

Is it just me, or did the crickets just get louder?

OK! OK! I didn't mean it! Come back! Come baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

*/rant*

I feel: you made Lucius cry!

It seems my body has tired of wearing its usual temperature and has decided to see what other ones might be like, which I wouldn't mind if it could manage it without also cramming my sinuses full of spare whatever. Perhaps it thinks the sinus cavities are a dressing room? You know, so my body can do its temperature fashion show and have a handy place to dump excess gowns and spangles. That may be why I keep sneezing sequins.

I feel: snotty but stylish