There have been quite a bit of time-consuming things in my life lately, and I've been a bit stressed out because of them (which, as some people might say, could have been avoided if I didn't take said things far too seriously in the first place. Guilty as charged, Your Honor.).

1. LARP is work! Or: Never, ever again!

I'm planning to attend a LARP convention in July. A colleague and friend of mine is a regular attendant at these sort of cons and convinced me to give the next one a chance. It takes place over a weekend and consists of a masquerade ball and two more days of social interaction in a Renaissance/Tudor/Baroque-like setting.

Of course, such a ball requires a gown. And a Venetian mask.

My friend, who's apparently a sewing afficionado, offered to sew said gown. After much deliberation, I picked a sewing pattern by Simplicity, the 2589 Misses Tudor Costume. temve has been a tremendous help with any and all sewing-related stupid questions.

Over the last couple of weeks months, my friend and I have scoured all fabric retail stores and online shops known to man. The gown is already in production, but considering my friend has also agreed to sew breeches and a vest for her boyfriend as well as for a buddy of his, plus her gown, and a modern dress she plans to wear at a wedding she's invited to, as well as two woolen cloaks for the two of us, and she's just a tiny little bit swamped. So far, she's been cheerfully keeping up, but...

My gown's over-skirt and corsage is made from a shimmering, silvery-grey fabric decorated with stitched twines, a light silver fabric for the underskirt, and - as of yesterday - a bordeaux-rosé fabric for the sleeves. My friend promised she already had grey lace for the ends of the sleeves, and now the only thing I still need is a few meters of trim for the edges of the corsage. Whew.

Also bought are:

• the a/m Venetian mask in silver,
• a hooped skirt
• a corsage (to wear atop a white blouse and a black skirt that I already have; it's for the two days after the masquerade ball),
• a wig with corkscrew curls.

I still need to:

• sew a Pompadour pouch to match my gown (and I can't sew!),
• make some kind of hair decoration, perhaps out of bits of the fabrics for my gown,
• think up and create a character to play at the con.

Oh, and on Monday? I'll meet up with my friend's boyfriend and buddy and drag them to the period dance circle a couple of towns over, so we can practice for the masquerade ball. Damn it all to hell. I can't dance. Plus, Baroque-like square dances I'd never even heard of before the whole LARP thing? Will be fucking painful.

2. Class reunion

Also, somehow - in retrospect, I must have been out of my mind! - I agreed to take on a lot most of the organization for our class reunion this year. 15 years post graduation - awesome, right? Well, it certainly requires an awesome amount of work! Tons of e-mails, lots of coding and updates (to the mailing list and website I've created), and a collection of addresses and telephone numbers that's never quite recent. :::sigh:::

Next time? I'll damn well decline to do more than help in a consulting capacity. The e-mail volume alone eats up hours of my spare time each week.

3. My cat is no longer a saber-toothed tiger.

Elena had problems eating her share of Thursday's kitty treat, and didn't even try on Friday. Plus, she'd been drooling a little in one corner of her mouth. I tried to look for the reason, but couldn't get her to open her mouth wide enough so I could check. Still, I suspected a toothache. So on Friday morning, I called in at work and took a half-day off, dragged her to the vet, and wasn't really surprised to learn that she'd broken off her top left fang. It had been left dangling at almost 90 degrees. Ouch. They anesthetized her, sent me away, and extracted the tooth plus root.

She was totally out of it when I carried her home yesterday at noon. Her eyes were open, but she didn't react in the slightest, and when she tried to crawl out of her carrier box half an hour later, she couldn't even walk. I left her in a quiet room without Yuki for the rest of the day. In the evening, I opened all doors in my apartment again, and she's been eating and behaving almost normally ever since.

Thankfully the vet in my quarter of the town - while he might not have the most modern medical equipment imaginable (Does he even have an X-ray machine? Thank God we didn't need one.) - always manages to squeeze me in on short notice. Plus, his practice is open on Saturdays for emergencies and appointments. He checked Elena's mouth today (everything seems to be healing fine), gave her another shot of painkillers and antibiotics, and sent us home.

I so hate the fact that she had to be given antibiotics. I'm still all traumatized by the Fungus-That-Wouldn't-Die and fear that it might return yet again. For that very reason, I've prefered suffering through two instances of Yuki being in heat rather than having her fixed (so far). Damn, drat, and damn again. I'll have to check both cats' ears with the ultraviolet lamp again in a few days' time. If the fungus is back? I. Will. Shoot. Myself.

By the way, I still wonder how Elena managed to break off her tooth in the first place since I don't make it a habit to feed my cats pebbles. It's one of the great mysteries of the universe.