Pictures, 100%, appreciation, bars.

[mrissa]

So I finally finished posting pictures from my trip to London today. The ones from Kew Gardens and the British Museum start here, or you can see the whole set of them starting here.

Last night I was sitting with timprov watching the baseball pre-game, and one of the players was talking about how his parents taught him to always give 100%, no matter what the situation. I said, "You know what? My mom had to teach me not to. My mom taught me that some things are not worth wearing yourself out over, you can't do everything, so you have to be choosy about where you spend your energy." "Taught you so well you almost listened," said timprov, but it's something I recognize in theory at least: trying to do absolutely everything absolutely perfectly is a very, very bad idea. The fact that it's a bad idea I'm personally prone to doesn't make it a good idea.

Some of my friendslist people seem to have had a beta-readers' appreciation day yesterday, and I missed it? Maybe it was more a fanfic thing? I don't know. In any case, I do very much appreciate the people who beta read for me. With novels especially, I get so immersed in what I'm doing that I lose a sense of what I've included and what just makes no sense. Having other eye tracks on the page sometimes makes me more aware even if the readers don't say anything themselves.

Still very tired and not very perky.

Oh, I know what I was going to say: one of you (I think in a locked post) asked who was going to World Fantasy. I was wondering if anyone was throwing a livejournal party. I'm not feeling even close to up to it myself, but if someone else was doing one, I have been known to bring pans of bars to such things, so maybe you should let me know to do that. So okay then? Okay.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Oh, man are they doing some fun things with that glass! Very glad to see it!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how many times that day I said, "I wish David could see this!"

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

And now I have, to a useful extent. Thanks!

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Alright, I give. I have tried to grok 'bars' from context and failed. (Besides understanding that it's not the place you buy booze.)

Brownies? Lemon bars? Something else entirely?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Ohhhh, honey. Oh, oh, oh.

This happened to my friend Amber when she lived in Texas. She brought bars to work and people thanked her for the brownies.

Bars: good sweet things what you put in a pan. Including but not limited to lemon bars, brownies, and bar-cookies. They're usually edible without a fork, denser than cake, not so messy. Staple dessert of the north.

Scotcheroos. Bomber bars. Applesauce raisin bars. Caramel cashew bars. Hello Dolly bars (in my case made without the coconut because Amber loves me). My Stars bars (again with the coconut omitted). Barrrrrrrs.

Ambrosia is the food of the gods of the southern lands; up here the gods eat bars.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Ahhhh... Tak.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Are you coming to WFC? Because if you are, I will bring the bars even if there is not an lj party.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I'll be there.

[seagrit.livejournal.com]

I'm practically drooling over your Kew gardens pictures. Plants! And Chihuly glass! Lots of them both together!

We have one Chihuly sculpture in the local gardens and sculpture park (www.meijergardens.org), but it's used more like a chandelier, and less to compliment the plants. They had a cool Chihuly exibit a few years ago (along with the annual butterflies, I believe), so I think it was purchased along with/for that exibit.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have heard of several cases where a traveling exhibition of Chihuly glass leads to a permanent acquisition of one of the pieces, yep.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Watched a Chilhuy dvd recently wherein he talked about the Japanese floats he incorporates in his installations. Somehow I don't think they call them walla wallas though.. :/

[pameladean]

KEW. TREES. CLOUDS.

I loved seeing you all with your heraldic beasts.

And if you had asked me if I thought it was a good idea to put that glass in Kew Gardens, I'd have said no, it certainly wasn't; but I'd have been wrong.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I would never have bet on anybody doing it as well as they did. It was astonishing.

[writingortyping.livejournal.com]

By the way - have read the first quarter (?) of Thermionic Night (finally). I had reformatted (for word density per page) and printed a portion of it for reading on airplanes. But then old-new job had not so much of the airplane time. So I finally read it earlier this week during some quality airplane time (which the new-new job has more of).

Thumbs up. Want to read more. Have some thoughts, but have no idea if you're still interested in them.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Sure, send 'em along. If I've already addressed those points or don't want to, no harm done, and if it'll make the book better, yay. Thanks!

[ellarien]

Thank you for sharing the pictures. I spent some very pleasant afternoons at Kew when I was living in London, though I don't remember encountering peacocks there. (Geese, yes, and a one-eyed squirrel that guilted me into handing over an apple core.) The glass is fascinating and beautiful.