Adventuring? School boards? NOLA Time Fest? Daleks? Life on planet Spectrum continues...

I was trying to sort out my phone this morning and actually use it's photo saving software array, and found all the pictures from the Big Adventure of three years ago.  I have been toying with the idea of taking a mini-adventure with da Creature this summer WITHOUT having the benefit of da Firstborn's aid and assistance.  I apparently like to live dangerously...

So, where should we go?  What should we do?  What haven't we done?  Should we go back to Houston for Pirates of Penzance (which is admittedly a good idea, but airfare is overpriced and driving is horrible, so....I'm really on the fence about this one)?

Meanwhile, on the home front, there have been unsettling developments in our local school system, none of which I understand fully yet, but apparently when the local School Board votes on something they never ever get back to the people involved.  This can only end badly for Eric, but everyone keeps telling me not to worry.  I am not a happy camper at the lack of information coming out of the District, but what in the world can I, one tiny cog in a giant wheel, really do about it anyway?  Perhaps contemplating Daenerys's thoughts on the subject of wheels isn't really that helpful, but it does make the frustrated, wicked, central core of my being happy when I consider my responses to the many passive-aggressive power hoarding civil servants who have forgotten the meaning of the words "civil" and "servant" and who hold absolute power over my child's ability to do public school...

UPDATE---it's amazing, you know...just three hours after I posted this, I got word from the District that all has been unsnarled.  I have an answer, and it's a good one.  So, now I can have a more peaceful summer! 

But, moving on to bigger and better things.  We spent most of last week promoting, and then working NOLA Time Fest III.  Though I'd have preferred better turnout (HEY---Hilton Airport NOLA...did you forget to put "adequate parking for guests AND convention spaces" on your to-do list when you designed your ridiculously inadequate hotel parking?), the people that did manage to make it there, park and come in were delightful!

Our Dalek Extermination Booth this year was totally redesigned.  I knew we'd never be able to shoot nerf darts at the beautiful Dark Smalek, so I created a laser target booth where you shoot "laser" guns (um...infrared fire hose devices if you ask me, given the crazy amount of work I had to do to make them able to shoot the targets individually) at lighted targets and make the lights change color.

 

I learned that too many rules are onerous and make for confused people who do not donate nearly as much money as people who are simply handed guns and told to play at shooting targets.  This is a valuable lesson to learn!  

We raised money for http://www.teaam.org/ TEAAM Autism, and that will be our permanent focal point for fund-raising for the foreseeable future.  TEAAM has a camp for autistic kids and I am encouraged that they provide safe, fun summer camp activities for all shades of the spectrum, and for all ages.  It is a wonderful place, worthy of my time and effort.

My dad came to Time Fest again this year, and it was fantastic to have him there, driving Dark Smalek around, terrorizing two-year old children, and delighting everyone with the pretty Dalek.  We did some television promoting, which was fun, and hard, and all in all, everything came together nicely.

Dad, fixing targets behind Smalek

At "News with a Twist" at WGNO

On the Morning Show at WWL-TV in NOLA

When Costumes Come Together

<<<---This photo bears some explaining.  There are things about life with an autistic child that I tend to gloss over, but this moment in time was particularly fraught with the unnecessary drama and struggle that comes sometimes with my child:

• He was exhausted, having been woken up at 4:30 AM
• He had said goodbye to his beloved sister at the airport at 5:30 AM for her summer job in Colorado
• He had been driven three hours to NOLA
• He had been forced to put up with adults trying to get the booth set up when he really wanted food and quiet
• He was not able to go play pinball because...adults/booth/reeezons
• He had HAD it
• The wifi wasn't working, which wasn't my fault.... 

All of that resulted in his flat refusal to do anything anyone told him to until "the wifi was working again."

O_O

That is not acceptable behavior.  If you are my child, you don't say "I'm not doing it, and I'm not compromising until I have wifi" to me...that actually results in this grown-up going all Mommie Dearest on your ornery little ass.

So...through a series of parental control maneuvers, I managed to force him to smile and take this picture.

On a related note...

He never got wifi. 

He wasn't GOING to get wifi at this point, even if the hotel did manage to provide it.

Oh, the poor dear...  *massive eyeroll*

However, he did get lots of love and things to do and eventually he did settle down and watch the Sound of Music behind the TARDIS, and he was much more cooperative after that.  Still...it was harrowing for me, especially since his yelling and refusing and stomping and crying were in such a public forum where I needed to be cool, calm, happy-seeming, enthusiastic and seem all shit-togetherish....

And so we meander to the end of this blog post.

By the way... I seem to be cured of Hep C.  At least that's what the medical professionals are calling the SVR (sustained virological response) I have achieved at three months.  I'll believe it when I die from that parachuting accident at 80 like Dr. Regenstein promised me...  ;)

Toodles, all!