mizarchivist

OK, I've been home since Sunday and not regaled with how the trip went. I think quite well, but being away from home and with no QE does make for a more tired mama by default, but still. Quite a good trip.
Activities included...
-A trip to downtown Cleveland to meet with the LGBT Coalition to talk shop on archive matters at the UCC headquarters. It went quite well. Dad and Crimefighter had mini adventures, mostly riding escalators and pushing buttons on ATMs.
- Visited several times with Amy & the girls, including dinner and an amateur intervention. It's only been a few months since all the girls moved in with Amy full time. It's been a rough transition. But they got to say their piece and supposedly helped, so good. There was also an ice cream outing.
- Nana came to visit. That went well, but she's not doing particularly well, so keeping things low key was a good idea
- 2 trips to the farm park. Such a good idea. Once with dad and QE's mom (Nana) and then the next day just with my mom. Crime Fighter thought it was the best thing ever!
- Visited Mom at the high school and she got to show off the rock star of a grandkid to her colleagues and several of her students. I'd been with her to school once or twice over the years, but nothing compares to witnessing a ~~your~~ toddler rampaging though the halls. He was thoroughly adored by all.
- Drawn and Quartered....Here's a post about it, actually. The TLDR version is teams of artists compete in a number of short form or one long form drawing event: contour line, gesture, most realistic, caricature, non-dominant hand draws, long form pose.... all being different events, plus several others. There are 4 judges who rate the drawings chosen from within the team (top 2 out of as many as 10 team mates) and the team with the most points at the end of the night win ~~fortune~~ and glory. OK, maybe someone buys them a drink. There were a few calls from the Emcee for volunteer models, so I got to be the model for the non dominant hand event, which definitely made my excellent wardrobe choice worthwhile. Well, it was worthwhile anyway, but now also immortalized. I've been hearing about this happening ever since my mom and her friends set it up 6 years ago and last year I vowed I'd come home for it. Given the drama surrounding the original venue, it's a bit of a miracle that it worked out. I'm glad it did. I don't know if I'll have the luxury to go back again next year, but it'd be nice. Not only was it fun, but I got to go with Amy and Dale and Lou. There was some hope that some of my other local friends could make it, but it was not to be.
-Spill count...Crime Fighter did an excellent job at finding and spilling things. The least surprising bothersome were the 2 bottles of bubbles. The nail polish was a bit upsetting, as it got on his clothes, skin, and some ice cube trays, but as it was an outside spill, not so stressful. The truly stunning ones were the purple fountain pen ink, which miraculously stayed on my dad's wooden office desk/table and did not leave any obvious stain (given the carpet is light blue and wall to wall... this was a near thing) and later that day: my red lipstick. I foolishly thought I could leave him for the length of time it takes to upload a picture to the internet and not have it be a big deal. Well, he managed to get upstairs, into my bathroom, find my makeup bag, empty it, and fixate on the lipstick. By the time I got upstairs, he was surrounded by my makeup on the bathroom floor and about 1/4 of his cranium covered in head-wound red lipstick. Yeeeah. Bath time. And it was a new tube, too. If I can feel somewhat safe in future tubes being left alone, I might hit MAC and replace them all, as this was not his first lipstick rodeo. Overall, glad that he didn't ingest anything scary and no permanent damage sustained. As far as I know.

Those are the big points. Did I miss any, Dad?
Some pictures...