So Halloween was pretty fun. I find it sort of funny that people generally assume I do lots of awesome stuff for Halloween, when really, I don't normally do a lot. This year was DEFINITELY the most I've ever partied. Friday I went and helped out MEK with their event. I helped set up a little and judged the cosplay contest. There was even a little dancey dancey. Also, I played pool. It was fun not to be the WORST EVER at the game.

I was playin' for keeps!

Anyways, it was fun to hang out with people, I ate WAY too much candy though. Bad Cat.

Saturday there was a little get together at the Kappa house. I played Rock Band, made spinach dip, and had fun hanging out there. I just wore my Scribblenauts hat then, which was probably for the best. My Ash costume was sorta smokey from the Applebees. Curse you Applebees.

Still, I like my Ash costume a ton. It's comfortable to wear, and people seem to respond positively to it. I find it a little hilarious because it's A) Not a costume worn by anyone in any of the games B)Is not Ash's current nor first costume but C)Everyone still knows who I am. If I go to Yule Con (which I might try to do just so I have something to do!) I will probably wear it.

How did this apple get on my desk?

Also... man... I am SUCH a fandom poser. After seeing all these references to "Cuanta Vida" on Fandom Secrets, I decided to see what the big deal was about. Oh geez. I need to stop fawning over fandoms I'm not actually in. Of course, I asked Andrew who he usually played when he played the game. He answered Spy. @.@

WTF I CAN'T EVEN PLAY FPS GAMES!!!

So I've been browsing the community 'Fandom Secrets' today- mostly because I had to kill time between getting home and tutoring a kindergartener. Math tutoring for five year olds is nutty. It's kind of awesome that doing a dot-to-dot is legitimate practice. (She has trouble identifying numbers 11-19, so finding them and putting them in order is good practice, and she gets bonus color time.)

I think after reading what all these people have said- albeit anonymously, I want to say a few really strange, really crazy things about me. No seriously, this is probably some of the weirdest stuff I've told about myself.

( And the sad thing is, you all probably won't even think it's that weird. )

I apologized to Andrew last night for not being the sort of girlfriend who dresses up as a sexy bunny on Halloween, and in fact being the sort of girlfriend who dresses up as a 12 year old boy for such holidays.

Yeah, I'm a cosplayer- but to quote Chris, "Not in the fun way".

It's probably TWBB's fault- new episode next friday- yay!

Anyways- I watched all of Ouran Highschool Host Club. In like 3 days. I haven't been on that kind of anime binge since highschool when I watched all of Blue Seed and Evangelion in 5 days. Go pirated VHS tapes, GO.

Err.. and then I go out, get a boycut and start cross dressing. Er... (No, just kidding. I was in desperate need of a haircut and the Ash costume was almost done by the time I started watching Ouran.) The show was cute, I enjoyed it a lot. Is it weird that I associate Tamaki with Usagi from Sailor Moon? Especially when all the host members were like "Yeah, we're antisocial freaks but then he was all smiley at us and told us to join this club, so how could we say no?"- it was like that scene in the Sailor Moon R movie where all the inner senshi are thinking about when Usagi was more concerned with playing on the beach or eating their bento than how weird and scary they were.

Also, I was totally waiting for Takarazuka star Benibara to be revealed as a dude- like... secretly a dude as a flip of Haruhi's situation. Y'know, he liked to sing and dance but is disguised as a girl because he has more success as a guy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a guy than just a regular male lead. No? Nobody else was waiting for that? Oh.

In case you're wondering, I heart Kaoru.

I wanted to write a letter (I still may) to the Shares, detailing what we could do to accommodate them, what we were unable to do, and explain my regrets. Unfortunately (for them) this is how the letter currently reads:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Share,
I hope you enjoyed your visit to Texas, my family was eager to meet you. I thank you for your interest in the wedding as well as the future Andrew and I are building together. However, most of all I would like to thank you for your most recent immature and irrational behavior, hereby assuaging any guilt I currently felt about not being able to meet all of your requests. Here's a tip should your other sons ever feel to inform you of a future marriage, rather than learning from their brother's experience and just eloping: If you want your child to bend over backwards to change their plans and the plans of others to make you happy, don't follow that request with insults and unkind words. It's obvious that even changing the selected date and time of our wedding would not be enough to satisfy. We cannot make you happy, but we can make ourselves happy, and that is what we are going to do.

KTHNXBAI,
Cat


Basically, as Andrew and I were puzzling over this issue, trying to figure out what we could realistically accomplish, Andrew's dad called him stubborn (for daring to question him and get more information about the situation) as well as likening him to Mrs. Share. Those of you who read my entry about my visit in August of 2008 will recall a similar accusation was made about me after that trip, along with my being chronically depressed and antisocial. Comparing someone to Mrs. Share is pretty much the worst insult Mr. Share can come up with.

He also forwarded (without no comment to show any form of disagreement) a letter Mrs. Share wrote to Andrew. (After receiving one too many upsetting and irrational emails from his mother, he blocked her address from his inbox.) The letter detailed more requests to include Jewish traditions (some of which I have no problem with, and will probably do because I am not a spiteful person) as well as again demanding a date change. The letter ended by telling Andrew that because he has not followed any Jewish traditions to this point, they don't want their name on the invitation (OH NOES. PUNISHED.) as well as a reminder that it is Andrew's duty and honor to uphold Jewish tradition.

It's just dumb, and it doesn't do anything to encourage us to meet their demands. My parent's names will be on the invitation, and that's fine. I'm actually relieved that we have a clear cut reason to back us up in our decision to carry on with our plans. We're setting a precedent now- not so much for the Shares (I wouldn't deign to teach them a thing) but for how we're going to deal with them in the future.

Thankfully, we love each other enough to deal with this. We find each other's company calming and are able to talk these issues out. It's not easy for us to just say no to these people. Neither Andrew nor I are confrontational people by nature- but neither are we going to send the message that it's okay to walk all over us.

In short, don't change your tickets. We're still on for saturday morning.

01022010

Well, those of you who know what's been going down this last week are probably wondering how this weekend went. For those of you just tuning in, Andrew's parents came in to town on wednesday, Andrew himself was here Friday evening. They all left today. Now, Andrew needs no reason to drop in whatsoever, but the supposed reason of this trip was for his parents to meet my family. I guess to make sure we all speak English or something. Andrew was pretty much working down to the wire the days before this trip to finish getting a paper ready for publication, so I'm beyond appreciative that he was able to come. I would not have been able to make it through this weekend without him.

( Events of the last few days )
This entry is labeled 1/2 because I wanted to make a separate entry, more or less the letter I would like to send to Mr. and Mrs. Share. I've been wrestling with a few issues for a while now, and frankly my head hurts. Ow.

I don't know if my church is doing a carnival like last year but... I kinda want to make something. (I HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO BE DOING, OBVIOUSLY.) MEK is having an event, I wanna dress up. Maybe a pokemon trainer? LOLZ... REVERTING TO SECOND COSPLAY EVER....

That's right, I crossplayed before crossplay was... no, let's forget that, it's still not cool.

Oh man, I *should* put this on the MILP blog, but it's just too good...

So, today was nuts. My family went crazy over picking a restaurant for dinner tomorrow, it's so silly. But all of that PALES in comparison to the phone call I got today. I was on my way home from getting my eyebrows waxed (STUPID. I AM NOT DOING THIS FOR THE WEDDING. I NEED TO STOP BEING AGREEABLE...) Whennnn....

Cat: Oh, a message? Huh. I don't recognize this number.
Voicemail: Hello, Catherine? This is Katherine from Marty Leonard Chapel... um... can you... give me a call? There's something you should know.
Cat: DID SOMEBODY'S FUTURE MOTHER IN LAW VISIT A CHAPEL TODAY? I THINK SO! Let's watch!

Lady at Chapel: Oh, yes, um, well I've just been mulling this over for an hour now, and well I decided I should call you.
Cat: What's that?
Lady: Well, your... well Andrew's mother came to visit the chapel today-
Cat: Yes... (I KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING...)
Lady: And well... she was asking about changing the date of the wedding? She wanted other options, I mean, I told her I was happy to give her the information but the only people who could make changes were you and Andrew.
Cat: @_@ Oh... yes... well... thank you for that. This... isn't new.
Lady: Oh, well I just... I mean, I didn't know if I should call you, but I thought if I was the bride I would want to know. I wanted you to be prepared so you had that words.
Cat: (OH I HAVE SOME WORDS!) Yes... I... bless your heart (I AM FROM THE SOUTH, SHUT UP) I... I appreciate the heads up.
Lady: She said she was in town for some... meeting?
Cat: We're having dinner... not a meeting...
Lady: Maybe that's not the word she used. She was also looking for some restaurants for a rehearsal dinner so I gave her some recommendations. I hope that was okay.
Cat: No, that's absolutely fine. Thank you for that.
Lady: Well and she told me how she was Jewish and that there would need to be a Rabbi present, and I let her know that that was up to you and Andrew. I *do* have a Chuppah...
Cat: I thank you for handling this so deftly.
Lady: My social worker instinct kicked in. I tried to counsel her
Cat: (CAN I HIGH FIVE YOU YET?) Oh my, thank you.
Lady: I brought up grandchildren. I told her, "You know, there is a chance grandchildren will result from this marriage. You don't want to do anything that would cause you to be excluded from their lives. My grandchildren are the most important thing in the world to me." Her whole countenance changed after I said that.
Cat: That was so sweet of you. I really do appreciate it.

The lady sounded so embarrassed and not at all sure how to bring this up. I tried to respond as smiley and good naturedly as I could to her, because I think she needed it and obviously she was just amazing. I am sending her a card.

HEY GUYS, I MADE IT THROUGH A WHOLE ENTRY WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT METAL GEA.... damn.

NAME A FANDOM AND I'LL TELL YOU MY:
- OTP
- Runner-up
- Honorable mention(s)
- Crack pairing(s)
- Ship everyone else seems to like, but I don't

((stolen from ippopi))

So Jennifer brings three GIANT binders of invitations over so I can pick one. Seriously 10 minutes and I'm like "Yeah, that one". Font? "Uh... that one. That's good." She goes on for a bit about how the names and the wording of the invitation are supposed to be in different styles of font and how there's all this complicated wording since Andrew's dad is a doctor and mine is a pastor... whatever. I'm sure someone has a degree in stupid invitation wording. These things end up in the trash anyways! I don't even think my mom has one of Debbie's anywhere.

My mom insisted we go shopping for dresses because HOMG I need more dresses. Or something. I don't know. We went to the dumb stupid mall of dumb. My mom was like "Oh we need to go to Macy's." Uh... no we don't. Dumb dresses are a hundred million dollars and apparently this year "Epileptic Vomit" is the color scheme of choice. ~_~ I know my mom wants to do nice things for me before I run off to a far away land where they don't have stores but... c'mon mom.

And on the way there my sister is giving me a giant lecture about how hard it is to pull together a rehearsal dinner. You have to invite everyone that has come from out of town. (Uh... okay. 90% of those people are old school buddies, which is fine with me but it's gonna get weird. And by weird I mean awesome.) You have to send *written* invitations. (WASTE OF PAPER. THIS IS WHY WE HAVE PHONES.) You have to do such and such and such and such and why haven't you planned this out already? IT IS ONLY THREE MONTHS AWAY. I'm like "Dude. It's a reservation at a restaurant. I get a head count, I tell people to show. IT IS NOT ROCKET SURGERY." Apparently I am not doing it right. Or something.

And of course sister #2 is so peeved because I am having my rehearsal dinner on the night she has a CONCERT to go to. WAAAAH. (Look lady, don't get mad at me that we only told you a week in advance. You dump my nephew on me with no warning at all. I DO NOT MIND BECAUSE HE IS FAMILY AND I LOVE HIM.) So she can only go to the dinner for a little bit. WHY CAN'T WE DO IT ON SATURDAY?? WAAAH>>> CONCERT!1!!!?? (Um, because I have an f-ton of things going on that day, also it is a day for my dad's dialysis, and on those days he is not up for a lot afterwards.) I'm not talking about a 4 hour event here. 2 hours, tops. Let's eat dinner, let's chat. Yay let's go home, I need to sleep and be ready for 86'd.

Seriously sisters. CHILL OUT. I AM NOT STRESSED (well *now* I am) BECAUSE IT IS NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO GET STRESSED OUT.

Keeping Voodoo Doughnuts on speed dial just in case.

In other news- the mgs_slash girls (well....99.9% girls) like me? T_T It's so neat to be part of a fandom!

This may seem counter intuitive, but... I started a journal just for my fandom (read: Metal Gear) stuff. I guess it's like an art journal, except a lot of it is likely to be fanfiction stuff. It's not all finished pieces, a lot of it is prewriting and WIPs. It's basically there so other interested fangirls can come and make constructive comments and such. (Also so I can post any het stories and art, which aren't allowed on mgs_slash, which is easily the most active metal gear community on LJ.)

At any rate, if you *are* interested to see what I'm up to in the fandom department, you can go Go check it out. Or don't. That's cool too. I just thought I'd put it out there for anyone that was interested.

OH NOES.



It is good to know that he would care.

So I'm writing a fanfiction. I haven't given fanfic writing a try in... a lot of years. Seriously, the last one I can remember writing was at some point back in highschool. It wasn't very good, but gosh darnitt I am such a Nightcrawler fangirl. (There is a bamf doll on my desk as I write this...) If I didn't have a few X-men fics under my belt I wouldn't have much claim to the title.

No, dumb comics and doodles seem to be my bread and butter when it comes to fandom. However, I have a rather voracious appetite for MGS fiction, it would seem, so it was only a matter of time before I tried to write something myself. I mostly plan on posting it on whatever LJ community will have me... I know you guys (who even reads this anymore?) are probably tired of my rambling about a video game series that 95% of you aren't even mildly interested in.

Anyways- I'm still tinkering with it. I had an idea that was tickling at the back of my head and I wanted to get it down. It's nothing terribly interesting, cloning blues mostly- but I had this conversation looping in my brain and the only way to get it out was to put it on paper. Or uh... a word.doc at least. Despite what Andrew says, I don't fancy myself a great writer. I can write down my thoughts clearly enough, I suppose- but when it comes to writing entertaining prose, I am absolutely clueless. Also, I don't know how to punctuate properly. This is what Beta readers are for. Geez, I didn't even know what a Beta reader was until recently. I AM LAMESAUCE.

Oh geez, I use words like "lamesauce". Why would anyone want to read something I wrote? At least I haven't let capsspeak infiltrate my fanfic. YET.

Ugh, anyways - I don't even know what the point of this entry was. Probably just to highlight how pathetic and aimless I am these days, even though I need to be doing wedding things and cleaning my room. When I say "cleaning" I actually almost mean "packing". OH GEEZ I AM MOVING AWAY IN THREE MONTHS.

Also... Andrew is apparently fighting scary Gamestop dragons to get me my Rooster hat. T_T Whatwhat?

This post is about FOOD! Not Metal Gear! DUDE IT'S LIKE WHOA.

So I enjoy my volunteer position at El Paisa. I'm officially addicted to tacos (seriously, I didn't go in on Friday, which meant a three day taco deficiency and I was just counting down the minutes til lunch today...) and it's a friendly work environment that doesn't send me home in tears at the end of the day. Also there is tea. Sweet tea. GLuggluglgubbb...

But the other reason I like it is that while yes, I am learning a lot about efficiency and time management and how the restaurant works together as a team, a lot of my jobs are just sorta... menial. Okay, normally that would be bad, but it is made *less* bad by 1) My MP3 Player and 2) My stuff going on *outside* of the kitchen. If I'm just standing there shucking tomatillos, I can spend some mental energy coming up with recipes for later use.

( THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR 86'd! ONLY READ IF YOU GIVE A CRAP. )

Metal Gear Business of the Day

1. Saw Philanthropy. It was pretty much awesome. Otacon only had a bit part (voice over) but that's fine, I was kinda expecting that. It just meant that I am still able to speak in coherent sentences now and can actually pull myself away from watching the movie long enough to write this LJ entry.

2. PROMO ART FOR PEACEWALKER ASDKAJSDJ!J!L@JK!!!
http://kotaku.com/5368716/enjoy-the-metal-gear-solid-peace-walker-tgs-promo-book/gallery/
I like the design of "Strangelove" who will no doubt blow things up. Um... am I wrong to assume that that's a dude? He is fully clothed, after all. Someone drew fanart and it looked like a chick, but maybe it was just *that* kind of fanart. ASKLDJASDSD!!! IT'S OTACON'S GRANDFATHER/DAD/DON'T CARE.
I'm actually really interested in this game. WHATWHATWHAT? Female characters I might cosplay as? NOWAI.

3. I'm crunching on ice.

4. I got to wear (if not own) a Scribblenauts hat. All was well with the world for about an hour. Photos on my facebook.

5. Give me a call guys. I'd love to hear from you. :)

Let me just go on the record, right now and say, my boyfriend is better than yours.

There, I said it.

Friday nights are kinda iffy for phone conversations. I'm usually not doing *anything* because I have no social life and all my friends live on the moon, but he goes to game club and that runs til midnight. Often, after that - people go out for food and sometimes even more games of the video variety. By the time he gets home, it's something like 1 or 2. Depending on what either one of us has going on saturday morning, that might put a crunch on time.

But we chatted last night and man.

I talked about Metal Gear.

A lot.

And when I say I talked about Metal Gear, I mean I talked about Otacon. And when I say I talked about Otacon, I mean I talked about really minute weird details that would only be relevant if I wrote an incredibly introspective fanfiction.

Not that I'd ever do that. Er.

Oh geez, I seriously talked about this crap for at least an hour.

And omigawd he actually responded like he was interested. Hand that boy an academy award.

No, no, I mean I guess he was a little interested. He's played the games, and he thinks it's cool that I'm having fun with all my comics and junk, but it's not like this is a terribly new fandom for me. (And it's not like it's the first time I got obsessive about something and yammered on for ages about it.) I mean, it wasn't *just* about Metal Gear- there was stuff that wasn't Metal Gear and how it... related... to Metal Gear. Erm.

Look, just take my word on this guys. If you can hold a conversation about your girlfriend's latest (recurring) craze at 1 in the morning, when the main topic is the fictional character whom most of your mutual friends would consider your romatic rival... and sound interested... yeah. You win at romance.

Just sayin'.

Cat's writing fanfiction. It's weird. Don't worry, there is not lots of make outs.




YET.

No, I just had a little conversation that kept tickling in my brain and I needed to write it down or it was going to bug me forever. Thankfully, my comics have endeared me to the MGS fangirls on LJ, so I have two offers for beta readers, so at least I can get some input before just totally putting stupid crap out there. LIKE I HAVEN'T DONE THAT ALREADY.

Geez I'm hungry. I didn't meet my taco quota today. :(

So October 10th. Looks like it is going to be the day that lived in infamy. Famously. Seriously, so much stuff is happening around that time I think I'm going to explode. Ugh! Probably I am just devoting too much mental energy to the whole thing.

( Cut because I'm going to ramble about pizza and stuff and it will probably go on FOREVER. )

In other news, apparently people like my Metal Gear comics! I just hope I can keep coming up with enough dumb jokes to keep it going. Yaaaaaaaaaay!

Cause I miss her!

The All About Meme!
( Copy and paste this in a comment! )

Is it worth mentioning that I haven't even started playing MGS 1 yet? I should probably clean my room up so I have a nice environment in which to enjoy it.

But don't worry about me guys, I'm fine.

Just repeat after me, "Beep, beep! I'm a Jeep!"

Seriously, this is the best icon ever.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/once-upon-hawp/52467
Okay, you can watch this if you want. It's adorable and it's where the art came from.

Also... I uploaded that comic I drew. Which will apparently be one of... more than one. I posted it on a mgs_slash as well as my DA. I hesitate to post it on facebook, if only because there are people here that don't need to see it.

I uh... I mean all the kiddos I'm friend's with. Of course.

Yeah, I'm not even commmiting real time to talk to you guys... I just have some time from now til when I have to go start my magical cake making. I'm making cake that is supposed to look like sushi. The cake isn't even that remarkable... I just wanted to make something fun. I already have a spot in the showdown, so meh. If I don't place, it's fine. SUSHICAKES!

Anyways, in other news....
I got MGS1 last night! Found it at movie trading company. Guess what I'll be doing in my evenings now? Who needs friends when you have a codec? Strangely, I'm keen on having the PS1 version as opposed to the remake. No idea why.

Umnnn... PAC night is tonight. I don't know what I'm making, but I'm going with Raymond and Caroline to H-mart so I'll just pick up whatever looks good. It sounds like there are a lot of newbie freshman that aren't able to bring food so I have to make up for it. Om nom nom. Cooking all day.

Funny enough- even though I'm not working today, I am going to El Pasia with Holly for lunch. I'm going to try something that isn't tacos. The Puerco Asada is awesome... but I've been thinking about flautas... all so good... why isn't there a sampler platter? Oh well, it's not like I don't have time to try everything ever.

Also... SCRIBBLENAUTS! Yay! My nephew thinks the game is hilarious. He likes to make animals and have them eat each other. He's so eight years old. I wish I had the hat. :(

Umm... other than that, not a lot is going on. I entertain myself by drawing (or thinking about drawing) MGS comics... Ooh yeah, I got prismacolors for 50% off which is nuts. Awesome, but nuts. So of course the first thing I draw is a MGS comic. What a dork.

Philanthropy in 8 days! SQUEEEEEE!