At least I started out feeling well-rested...

This week has been a pretty weird one, with most of said weirdness surrounding workplace drama that left the entire admin staff feeling demoralized and insecure. Good times! My vacation is already a distant memory. Speaking of which...

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

As you know if you've been paying attention, we were supposed to go camping with extended family, but what with the sucky, scary, life-endangering weather we've been having, we decided to stay home. I'm not going to give you a day by day blowdown, because even I realize how boring that would be. And so, in chronological (more or less) order, here are some easy-to-skim bulleted highlights! Wheeee!

• Best day: Tuesday. I slept in ridiculously late, got up and ate breakfast around 1, took a bubble bath, then drove into town for a little me-time spent shopping for new clothes and drinking fancy coffee with a fancy pastry and sitting outdoors and gazing thoughtfully out at an empty duck pond between writing the occasional paragraph and getting bits of fancy pastry all over my lap.
  
  
• Best discovery: The charity thrift shop I found in an affluent neighborhood where affluent people donate their ridiculously nice, barely-worn clothes as soon as they're "so six months ago." I walked out of there with a sack full of brand names I didn't think I'd be wearing any time soon, all of which made up four or five different summer outfits, for around $35. Awesome sauce.
  
  
• Best entertainment: The Phantom of the Opera, which I saw Saturday with BFF. This was the fourth time I've seen it, and I'm going again with Husband in a couple of weeks. I still frakking love this show, beyond all reason. Even though I'm a little more mature now than I was back when I was a bona fide "Phantom phan," and I've got a little more perspective on just how messed up Erik is, my heart still breaks for him. Poor Erik. I know, I'm such a geek. But... that's kind of the whole point of this blog, so you knew that.
  
  
• Worst mellow-harsher: Real Estate Guy, who for various and sundry reasons beyond his control had to cancel Friday's house hunt. I feel for the guy and understand his plight, and really appreciate the education he gave us the one time he took us out, but unless/until his schedule gets less busy, this arrangement just isn't working. So we're checking out Big Sis's agent, which we probably should have done in the first place. Hopefully, we'll actually get to go look at some more houses soon.

There was other stuff, too, much of which involved napping, Chinese food and pre-mixed mojitos. Now here's hoping that next year's vacation is an actual getaway, preferably to someplace tropical where you don't have to get out of your lounge chair to refill your drink.

Let's all defy gravity.

Awesomesocks, indeed. This gave me chills. And I might have something in my eye.

Firefly & Serenity fanvid: Defying Gravity

Weekend Pop Culture Roundup, Part 1: The Non-TV Bits

In theaters: Mama Mia! - this would be in the actual theater, pronounced "thee-ah-tah" if you're kind of pretentious. I love this show like I love Abba, which is an unabashed lot. This is the second time I've seen it, and I think I liked this cast better, and not just because the male lead reminded me a heckuva lot of Nathan Fillion. I thought the actress playing Sophie had both a better voice and more chemistry than in the last production I saw, plus, not to imply she had anything but a lovely figure, but I appreciated that she wasn't a twig.

On Netflix: Near Dark - yes, I thought of Nathan Petrelli the entire time I watched this, because it's not as if Adrian Pasdar has had a long and varied career in between now and when this movie first came out. Even so, I started to get the sense that he's getting typecast: likeable, well-intentioned guy with understandable aspirations (getting laid, becoming president... same difference [insert your own Clinton joke here]) gets in over head with evil, murderous group who wants to make him a pawn; he doesn't really want to go along with it, but he doesn't exactly stand up to the bad guys, either, at least until his family becomes threatened. Yes, methinks Pasdar had some prior experience at playing that role. But besides that, Bill Paxton is cheesier and more over-the-top than ever in this movie, and I can't help loving it.

Croupier - this one was a pick from Matt's queue. Clive Owen stars as a writer turned blackjack dealer who's really researching a book, except that secretly he really wants to be dealing, and he almost unknowingly sleeps with his step-mom-to-be... or something. Clive Owen is pretty. That's what I mostly remember. That, and he needs to give The Edge back his hat.

In comics: - I'm slowly but surely catching up on Astonishing X-Men. I read #s 16 and 17, and so far, I'm with Kitty: "YeahbuhWHA?" I need to track down issues 18-20 so I can understand what the heck is going on. What I can say for sure is that I adore Joss's treatment of Wolverine, and also that he's made me love Kitty almost as much as Buffy. And, I hope Emma's not really evil, and has a good excuse.