The original plan, as pried out of Dawn last night: meet at Metrocenter at 11:30-ish, get lunch, see movie. Dawn and her husband were to pick me up, as bus service on Sundays is spotty, and I wanted to show her my new place anyway. They were supposed to come by at 11. I decided to set my alarm for 10 to be on the safe side. (Usually, a half-hour before departure time is all I need.) But I know how these things work.

At 10:30 (approximately) the phone rang. Did I mention that Darkside is very often at least an hour early to any given event? I have come to factor this in to my plans after the notorious broken VCR event of a few years back. He'd lost my right number; he'd had to call Dawn to get it.

Dawn brought Thanksgiving leftovers for me, a nice large plateful. I stashed them in the refrigerator. Thursday I mostly had popcorn and carrots, because I wasn't really hungry. We went out and had lunch. We carpooled. Dawn has a new car. We went in that. Darkside's car still needs a serious workover. The thing with the shaking has been fixed; a tired needed replacing. Lunch was Fuddrucker's, in the Elvis booth. I was quiet. I can hold my own with Darkside and Dawn, but when Dawn's husband enters the fray, I'm out of the conversation, because he dominates any conversation he's in, and when it's television and movie trivia, I'm lost unless it's something I've read books about or actually seen myself, and that's rare.

Dawn invited me to the family Thanksgiving the year after next (next year, it's going to be in California), and made it known to Darkside that he is invited as well. I let Dawn know that I'd love to come, unless some more immediate family obligations happen. (What I meant, of course, was that as much as I would love to be with Dawn for Thanksgiving, if Darkside's mom invites me, I'm there. Dawn deciphered my meaning handily.)

Movie was good, for the fourth time. There was elbowing and whispering. Dawn pulled her seating magic and made sure that Darkside and I were sitting together. Darkside and Draco Malfoy look a lot alike again, except Darkside's hairline is further back, his hair is darker, and he's more pointy.

The bond needed that time in the quiet and dark.

I know how to get him to talk: I just sit there and be quiet.
I think I know, now, how to court him.

Dawn's husband is a California driver. Enter the California Driver versus the Arizona Black Friday Mall. The finger was utilized. Darkside and I exchanged glances. Dawn murmured soothing platitudes. I waved at the college as we passed it, and joined Darkside in saluting it. Darkside salutes all of his former institutions of learning thus. I find it endearing.

We discussed the movie, but seemed to find it overall good. I grumped about one thing that bothered me (a specific thing was named incorrectly) and lo, debate sprang up as to whether it was correct or not. This moved on into discussing other movies, and in particular something particularly cheesy starring Bruce Willis in a comedy pretending to be an action flick.

Dawn and her husband had to depart, as they had family dinner things to do. Darkside left then as well. I gave Dawn some of the promised blood cordial.

Life is good.

pornish_pixies: "Mates" Harry/Ron, not safe for work, Dad, or cousin. The line about following directions comes from here.

LiveJournal Move Blog: LJ moved from Seattle to San Francisco. Watch them go apenuts in retrospect!

Current pic-loading issues are due at least in part to the fact that their disks are acting like an under-staffed retail store in the manic holiday season. They've got enough stuff in stock (disk space) but not enough employees to help all the customers at once (spindles; the disks are always busy storing or retrieving something, and those take a non-negligible amount of time) so the queues are incredible.

biichan: a GoF drabble: http://www.livejournal.com/users/biichan/425288.html "Moody"/Dumbledore

Via slashdot: Top 20 Geek Novels (an unscientific but interesting set of poll results).

Via the daily_snitch: I'm Mad-Eye Moody and so is my wife: a pseudo-script summary of the movie. Much snark. Much spoiler. Yay!

"Christmas Lights" -- video clip showing some well-synchronized Christmas lights. Sound is essential for the full effect. Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Evidently constructed from stills (look for the blinking tower light above the star; watch it with the sound off) but masterfully done! Firefox didn't like it, but (IMNSHO) it's worth dusting off the spare browser to see.


I'm currently Lost in a Good Book.

The best pastime for an extended Star Wars opening line-wait is a diverting lightsabre fight. Keeps the kids entertained. Keeps the adults entertained. If the kids are the ones holding it, they're running around and will tire themselves out doing this so they can sit still through the movie. (For purposes of this description, "kids" is anyone young enough to have difficulties sitting still through a feature film. This may class some eight-year-olds as "adults".)

For a Potter movie, the best pastime is, of course, Quidditch. (The best active pastime. The best passive pastime might be writing round-robin crackfic. HP crackfic has ruined me for serious fic forever. The discerning X-Phile might be able to trace this fondness of mine back to "Colors".) For a good, rousing game of informal in-line ground-based Quidditch, you pretty much need balls that won't really hurt anyone if thrown, and bats to whack them with. A variety of balls, of course. Enthusiastic players. Yay, Quidditch.

I stopped by the dollar store. I am now the proud owner of one (1) pale yellow foam pool noodle, one (1) honeydew-sized blue inflated ball with pufferfish-style nubs on the outside, and one (1) squishy purple-and-green stressball. The foam pool noodle was cut down to form three (3) bats about two feet in length each.

I'm going to either make some up-too-late Potterheads very happy, or some Mall Security very unhappy. (Or both.) I deliberately went for the soft-and-squishy, as it's exceptionally non-dangerous, unless someone's choking on it.

I hit the fabric store and emerged with one spool each of blue and gold ribbon, and a black cord frog to replace the broken pewter clasp on the wonderful cape that Mama made for me so many years ago. The frog looks lovely with the cloak. It's a little more complicated than the usual few swirls of cord, a loop, and a knot: this one has spirals of cord facing each other across each side of the closing and across the edges of the cloak, and a lovely loopy decorative knot at each end besides the knot of the closing. I'll take and post photos at some point, though I may be a little hyper to make coherent photo posts now.

The ribbons are winding up in my hair. I have a number of slender and neutral (black, browns, navy blue) headbands, and I grabbed the black one and knotted the gold and blue ribbons about it, so they'll fall through my hair and down my back, flashing Ravenclaw colors without being so bulky as a scarf, as flashy as a tie, or as hard to re-arrange as an actual clever hairstyle laced with colored ribbons. They'll hold for Quidditch, in other words.

I'm going to try and get there early so I can drop off a book at the library and get a good place in line or something like that.

Connected with Darkside's mom when I finally called and got through. (Leaving a message before seven-thirty does not satisfy me; I opted not to, this time. Not like they don't recognize the number.) Darkside was out. Mission of mercy. The friend who he stood as groomsman to lives on the West side of the valley. The implication that he makes this trip and further, weekly, does not entirely please.

His mother and I talked of children and baby-sitting. "Could not mount boot drive" is not a good message; perhaps Moshie or the LF was messing with the settings? Best-case scenario. And that degenerated into talk of Babysitting Experiences Past.

I want; I need; I require some alone-time with Darkside. Situation in the head about to approach critical again. Not quite yet, but Crazy Bus Stop Lady was right that I need to center, unwind, and not be wound quite so tightly. Work'll do that. Darkside's mom said he was contemplating Serenity. I'd like to schedule an appointment, either for Serenity or for Goblet of Fire. Would be nice to have GoF as an opening night appointment together... perhaps I shall plant seeds in Lady Malfoy's brain about group outings. Not just my bondmate and me, but perhaps his mother as well...

If I want to be part of my bondmate's life, and him to be part of mine, I have to consider a few things. He's not a solo unit: he comes with a family. It behooves me to get along with the family as well as with him.