A lovely birthday weekend Sunday of blood sausages and corsets

This is us.
I mean, mostly. At the museum today I was viewing some of the Venetian portraits, and the tour guide was talking about how they were interested in the character of a person and not just the likeness. (I wasn't actually on the tour, just eavesdropping)  I also read it on one of the little explaining-side-panels. The image I was looking at was this cocky, dark-haired-bed-head beefy dude looking all dude-ish-tough in armor. The Jon Snow of ancient Venice, only one who smiled. I love this picture because it kinda covers not only our individual personalities, but how we relate to each other. My friends will read this blurb, and one will sarcastically ponder it, and half-heartedly consider it, and the other will laugh and think maybe the blood sausage I ate is poisoning my mind.

One is thinking: I'm stuck with these two. One is thinking "Muahahaha" and one is
thinking "Can I hold this expression any freakin' longer? Take the shot already." I
also have some serious crazy eyebrow going on.

I ate blood sausages!

Well, I ate a part of a blood sausage. It was disguised on the menu. They didn't call it a blood sausage in English, and it was the only menu item that wasn't described in English. But the waiter explained what it was and what mustard went with it. It's the darkest of the four sausages, and the filler was curry, because blood sausages need a filler in order to be edible. (My friends and I are now experts on blood sausages because after we all tried it, we wikipedia'd it... I really only ate a few bites of the blood sausage. It was one of four from the  sausage sampler for I te for lunch, and I am pretty much now not going to eat until Thursday. I couldn't even finish the four sausages. But I can tell you the sausages were local and delicious, and now I want to try more blood sausages to see if there's one that has a filler I like more. We're also as a group, going to find Haggis, and eat it.

Museum trip!
This is my friend.
She's been my friend for like, ever.
Okay, like, a very long time. Loong time. Years.
We went to the museum for my birthday.
And played dress-up.

There was a Masters of Venice exhibition, and we were struck by all the Madonna/child images where the mother figure looked less than pleased with the too-old-to-be-a-baby baby figures. This is my friend reenacting one of those portraits.

She rocked it.

We're still slightly confused by the order of dress, but close enough. I only regret she didn't do the neck ruffle.

Apparently, we found one of the few places you could play with clothes and trinkets... though they were apparently meant for children... who knew?

This is a picture of my other friend. Who I've also known for ages. She tried on the outfit, and completely rocked the neck ruffle. But instead I'm putting this picture of her standing and looking out the window at a view of Denver and beyond. I don't know why I like this one, but I do. It's very her. I mean, the neck ruffle was her, too, so it was a tough call.

There's pictures of me but they are inappropriate to put online, because it turns out, I can rock a corset and make pictures inappropriate. I could also put one online, but I'm shy about what I look like in photos (ha!).

I did play with fabric, though, because there was also an exhibit on Japanese fashion from the 1980s and 1990s...  There was a great little room on fabrics and yarns and threads... that also featured a lovely knitting group. If I lived closer to the museum, I'd probably hang out there all day, too. As for the Master's of Venice, I know using gold was kind of their thing, but it didn't take long for me to think that their obsessive use of gold in the renaissance was just not something I could appreciate. I know, I know, it was big back in the day.  

November is Nanowrimo. There are a lot of rules. Well, no. There's one rule. Write 50,000 words, and write every day. The Great Gatsby was apparently, only around 50,000 words. We should bring novellas back. I like that length. Anyhow, my personal goal isn't to just write 50,000 words, but it's to get through most of the first draft of my next novel. This means I might have to put revisions on my sci-fi draft off until December, which is okay, since no one is going to want to look at drafts in December anyhow. Also, I've revised the first five chapters, and the last three, mostly, so feel comfortable sending the novel out, knowing it takes weeks to get a response.

It's going to be a quiet month, November, because I'll be working and then coming home, and shooing everyone away from me so I can write. I'm kinda looking forward to it.

Turning into a recluse!
I mean, I'm not, but I really appreciate the quiet time when I'm pretty much left alone. I've got a lot of things to deal with, and I'm mostly an introvert, so the more I have to deal with the more I like to hide out, and the winter is the perfect time to do that. I expect a lot of early-nights in loungewear writing or quilting or coloring or doing some other craftsy thing.  Take tonight for example. A big day at lunch (I ate blood sausages! and the museum and it's 7:15 p.m. and i'm wearing plaid pajama pants thinking about how to make a Russian felt hat for my costume for Halloween tomorrow thinking about how I need a day to recover from my fun day.