I bought bananas from Your Dekalb Farmer’s Market thinking they might quickly brown with the intention of baking something with them. They were about an hour away from black death this evening so I ran by a local chain grocery to grab some pecans, and found some peanut butter swirl chocolate chips at a major discount so I was like, “OH YEAH” and made some “Elvis” cookies! (I took pics with my iPhone, so apologies for the graininess.)

I based my cookies on this recipe from Simply Recipes: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/banana_cookies/

Lots of pictures and links tonight!

On Sunday I saw the matinee performance of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at my friend’s high school. Her kids did a great job and I was happy to see everything come together. I visited the school earlier in the week to attend their final dress rehearsal and take pictures. When the student who the Gigantor Pink Sweater was made for came out, I nearly lost it laughing because he pulled the hat down too far and came out like this:

I gave him a few pointers on wearing the hat a tad more “jaunty” and I was glad to see he figured it out for the actual performance! That right there is my very first sweater, ladies and gents!

This week is all business, though. I have a presentation in each of my classes this week. One is a book presentation on Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl. I’m sort of winging that one. I taught myself how to play “Happy Birthday” on my new ukulele to play as I enter the classroom in character, just like Stargirl sings to people in the cafeteria. I also stitched up a little “Cinnamon” rat out of an old t-shirt.

I plan on getting a classmate to tape my book presentation tomorrow night so that I can save it for posterity’s sake. Actually, I live to embarrass myself on the Internet (see above). Really, I’m kinda excited about walking, playing the ukulele, and singing at the same time, and if I can pull it off, I’ll be damn proud of myself!

My other project is for my Content Area Literacy course on how to activate students’ prior knowledge on a particular subject, and ways to get them excited and motivated about the upcoming lesson or unit. My group covered four subjects of high school, and I made a website with iWeb to share our information. I got to cover English-Language Arts and am particularly proud of my motivation ideas. You can check out our website at: http://web.me.com/cassiecsmith/Interest_Ignition/Home.html.

After Thanksgiving, I’m turning in my completed list of twenty-four young adult books that I’ve read this semester. I just started Little Brother by Cory Doctorow this evening, and am extremely fascinated by its premise. The l337 speak and hax0r language in the novel makes me have to read certain passages a few times to make sure I completely understand what’s just been said, but so far (20 pages in) I’m enjoying the novel. And bonus that it’s an ex-library book from Cleveland!

Also due after Thanksgiving is another project for my young adult lit class involving the creation of learning centers. Like centers in kindergarten only for high school students and way cooler. My learning centers are all about comics and graphic novels. Again, I’m using iWeb to create a website to showcase my learning centers and w00t- iWeb has a comic book theme! So I borrowed one of Jason’s many superhero shirts and totally geeked out.

Tee-hee. Anyone know why I have those two super hero ladies next to me on the page? I’ll give you a clue- look in the blue box to the left.

Also after Thanksgiving, I may do a tiny neighborhood craft show. Key word is may. I’m not sure if I’ll have enough stuff to show, but really I wouldn’t be going to make a lot of money. It’d definitely be more for the fun of being around other crafters.

As for Thanksgiving itself, I will most likely be traveling to Carbondale, Illinois (home of the Southern Illinois University Salukis) to visit my mom’s entire family. My grandmother had a massive stroke this past Friday and is still in the hospital, but fortunately she’s been able to speak when she’s conscious and can recognize people around her. All of my mom’s siblings are up there with her, and my brother and I will probably be up there, too. My poor dad has to work next week so he’ll be home alone with the pets. I may stop off in my new favorite city of Nashville if my friends are in town, but don’t expect too much excitement. I haven’t been to Carbondale in over ten years so maybe there’ll be something new to see. I finished some pretty blue socks for my grandmother and it’ll be nice to give her those while she’s recovering.

I didn’t want to end this post on a downer. So here’s a cute picture of me and the little girl I babysit riding the kiddie train at Zoo Atlanta. Happy Thanksgiving!

Just thought I’d stare off this post and SCARE YOU! That was me on Halloween- super duper green! We celebrated with a big group of friends at the Graveyard Tavern in East Atlanta and danced until 2, I mean, 1, no I mean 2 (damn you, Daylight Savings!). Anyway, it was late and COLD and I was green.

Now on to the fun stuff.

I’m knitting a pink sweater vest for a costume for a high school play. And I’m reading a lot (per the usual) and trying to knit for fun in between all that. My bedside table looks like this:

It’ll be fun to show off the vest when I finish because it’ll be my first big garment.

And for all of you who knit, I came across an easy knitting charitable cause today. The Shepherd Center is an AMAZING hospital and rehabilitation center in Atlanta for spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries. They are trying to collect 60 handknit men’s scarves by December 1st and I wanted to put out the call to any readers who knit. I’m going through my stash and plan on making some nice, but simple scarves in order to get a few done. For more information, you can email Tracy Walling at Tracy_Walling@shepherd.org. I think 60 scarves can be easily accomplished over the rest of the month so I highly encourage you to spread the word!

If you haven’t already heard, Atlanta recently became the Lost City of Atlantis on Monday. It rained here for nearly a week and a half prior to Monday’s flooding so when it began raining heavily yesterday, the ground was saturated and the new rain had no where to soak. The Chattahoochee River runs just north of the city and has several major tributary creeks running through the city. Thankfully my part of town is elevated just enough to have avoided any flooding, but nearby neighbors didn’t fare so well.

At first I thought all the flooding was occuring along the city’s northern limits along the Chattahoochee, but via Twitter, I quickly learned that places I used to live and places that I visit often were under several feet of water. I-85 and I-75 merge in Atlanta into was is known as the Connector. On Monday afternoon, motorists had to be rescued from their cars in the northbound lanes as water piled up at the Freedom Parkway entry ramp onto the Connector.

When this photo appeared on Twitter, I started to get really nervous. My boyfriend is at law school downtown and around the time this started happening on the Connector, MARTA shut down due to water in the tunnels. And then north Atlanta (where we used to live) got pummeled with flood waters and the Chattahoochee River began to swell under the I-285 bridges that crossed its murky waters. Thankfully the rain stopped in the evening and waters began to recede in the downtown area. MARTA started running again and my boyfriend got home on time.

But the pictures tell the story of how much flood damage actually took place. I was lucky to have gotten by unscathed (except for a little window leakage), but all over the city and especially in the northwest counties of Cobb, Douglas, and Paulding, people’s homes are STILL under water as we speak.

In March 2008, a tornado came through downtown Atlanta, tore off pieces of the Georgia Dome, and smashed windows in the CNN Center and the Westin hotel. People were in shock that this kind of disaster could happen inside a major city. There’s this impression that cities are immune to the devastating acts of Mother Nature seen out in the rural parts of the state. In the city, somehow we’re safe from this killer weather. But the tornado and this flood have convinced me that Mother Nature doesn’t want us to be lulled into false security. We’re all in danger of forgetting what she’s capable of… but then there are weeks like this when she sends us a harsh reminder.

I’m thankful to be safe and well, but still a little worried about my fellow Atlantans. We’ll make it!

(And now I’m off to watch the Futurama episode about Atlanta… )

This year’s Dragon*Con acted as a great trial run for me. I vaguely remember my first (and prior to 2009, my only) Dragon*Con two years ago and that’s probably because I had to work both Saturday night and Sunday morning so I didn’t do much. I dressed up as Leela from Futurama one day, but that’s about it. This year’s Con was a much more serious attempt at attending panels, making new friends, sitting next to celebrities (Malcolm McDowell, fools!), hiding alcohol, and figuring out how to stay well-rested. I failed in the latter item as it took nearly 15 hours of sleep on Monday to recover.

On Friday I saw a bunch of stellar costumes to start off the weekend:

This Nurse Joker wasn’t messing around. It usually makes me giggle when people are in character, but this dude had it DOWN. The voice, mannerisms, everything. Best Nurse Joker I saw all weekend.

I refer to this guy as “Man Leia.” I have another pic of him trying to lick himself.

This gal did an excellent job on the Johnny Depp version of the Mad Hatter. Really loved the hair and eyebrows!

A walking, talking TARDIS!

Dr. Mrs. The Monarch gets checked out….

A huge lucha libre group. Check out the guy’s pose on the front left!

So yes, the costumes were fun and there are many more on my Flickr site. Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures during panels because I didn’t know we were allowed to, but now I know for next year and will make a point to take pictures during big panels and try to get pics with panelists.

As far as panels went, I attended several from the Young Adult literature track and enjoyed them very much. I especially liked the religious themes in YA lit panel and look forward to next year’s YA track. Jason and I attended an voice acting panel with several famous voice actors including the guy who did Roger Rabbit’s voice, the current voice of Porky Pig, and Vic Mignogna (who is 47 years old?!?!). That was quite the interesting panel- I didn’t know who most of those guys were at first, but they were all so funny that it didn’t matter.

I missed a lot of great panels though due to working half of Sunday and then needing sleep like crazy. I’m a little sad, but mostly I just feel like it’s good prep for next year. We definitely plan on getting a hotel room at the Marriott, stocking it with booze, and taking naps as needed. No more of this schlepping back and forth to East Atlanta on the MARTA business.

Another great event from the weekend was meeting up with some fellow-crafty-types at the Marriott on Saturday:

From left to right: Renee, Alexia, Dot (aka Nancy), Jessi, and Misty

You can follow theses ladies on Twitter: @obajoo, @emberlexi, @DotatDabbled, @jessidee, @mistyg

They are all amazing crafty ladies- you may know Renee from the great blog The Domestic Scientist (she’s had several items featured on the Craftzine blog!) When I fix up my blog’s appearance I’ll add a special place to link to their blogs.

And finally, I ran into a local hero of mine: Lucky Yates of Dad’s Garage fame!

I talked to him for all of two seconds and totally gushed like an idiot (look at my giddy smile in that pic), but this was a major fan moment. I’m a little surprised at myself as I used to interview famous musicians at the radio station and always prided myself on my composure, but damn, even Jason said I was acting stupid silly. I think I actually forgot the name of the neighborhood I used to live in (Inman Park) and Lucky finished my thought for me. Major stupid silly, I tell you.

We had a great weekend and now I have all sorts of inspiration and ideas for next year. I’m already plotting costumes (Hank Venture as The Bat, Duck Dodgers, and Futurama just to name a few…), plotting tactics, plotting mini-events (more crafting, anyone?). Why, why, WHY does this only have to be one weekend out of the year?

But there are some fun events coming up to keep me occupied: Oktoberfest/JapanFest on Sept. 19/20, GreekFest/my birthday the weekend of October 3-5, and HALLOWEEN! Yes, I am totally succumbing to the marketing tactics of Michaels, Target, and every grocery store in Atlanta.

I miss all of my new friends already, though, and hopefully we can all get together before next year’s Con!

I don’t have much time to write a great Dragon*Con update, but I did want to add this for the ladies who met up at Pulse Bar next to the “Geek Crafters Unite” sign:

“Penis….NOOOOOOOO!”

I was going to wow you with my l337 HTML skills by putting a lovely table with my proposed schedule on here, but when I realized how many rows this thing would need, I figured you probably wouldn’t mind too much if I abstained this time. I’ll show you what a l337 hax0r I am some other time.

As for my schedule, it’s in list-form with highlighting on the “crafty” panels I’ll be attending. I have a birthday dinner to attend Saturday night and work on Sunday morning so sadly I don’t get to go to some of the costuming panels I want to visit, but since Jason wants to try his hand at cosplay next go-round, maybe over the course of the year we’ll both start learning costuming skills. I am attending several Young Adult Lit panels as I’m currently taking a YA Lit graduate course- doesn’t hurt to get a little Sci-Fi and Fantasy into the classroom!

Friday:
10:00 AM – Shatner/Nimoy
11:30 AM – Spin City
2:30 PM – Tarot Reading
5:30 PM – Animation Voice Acting
7:00 PM – Religious Themes in Young Adult Lit
8:30 PM – Dunny*Fest
11:30 PM – East Asian Tattooing

Saturday:
10:00 AM – Dinosaurs!
11:30 AM – Firefly Verse
1:00 PM – Venture Bros / Crafty Meet-Up (UH-OH!)
2:30 PM – MST3K to Cinematic Titanic
4:00 PM – Story Origami *crafty*
7:00 PM – Costuming 101 (maybe)

Sunday:
2:30 PM – An Hour With Space Ghost
4:00 PM – Gonzo Panel Show

Monday:
10:00 AM – Sci-Fi/Fantasy for Teachers
11:30 AM – Origami Open Fold *crafty*
2:30 PM – Futurama

I have some major gaps in my schedule (Friday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday) so if anyone has some suggestions I’m totally game. I’m not well versed in a lot of what Dragon*Con is about, but I’m definitely open-minded and game.

Also, still debating whether or not I will wear some sort of fun dress-up outfit one day. I have a platinum blonde wig somewhere and some fun shoes. I’d love to go sort of Harajuku one day… we’ll see.

And you may have noticed that the Venture Bros. panel conflicts with the crafty meet-up at Pulse Bar: I may go to the panel for a little bit and meet everyone around 2 pm. Just keep me updated as to where you are- email me your cell #s so I can text/call you. cassiecsmith [at] gmail [dot] com.

Unrelated: I’ve gotten some fun goodies from Etsy this week. New earrings, vintage shoes, and this fantastic Elizabethan frame necklace from eRosasJewelry. I’m modeling it while trying to look fun and fancy-free, but I think it just comes off as silly!

No, the gigantic house in the background is not mine. I was babysitting & the baby was asleep. Here’s a better pic of the necklace:

Mmmm, loooooove.

See you at the *Con- email me/Tweet me for my cell #!

I’ve been thinking a lot about music lately, in a similar way to how literature has come in and out of my life in the past year and a half. I shall explain: When I graduated with my English degree in May 2008, I took a long break from reading fiction and poetry. I almost exclusively read magazines and have all the 2008 issues from my favorite ‘zines. At the end of the year, I felt as though I’d purged prescribed reading from my system and set out to read great books that I hadn’t been able to read during college. So far this year, I’ve read a lot of really wonderful books and got a tattoo over the weekend to commemorate two of the books I read (more on that and pics below).

Music, aside from children’s tunes like the Laurie Berkner Band and Raffi, hasn’t been much of a priority to me since I left WRAS when I graduated. My personal relationship with the physical station was tumultuous during my years there ranging from the honeymoon stage when I was a mere graveyard shift DJ to pride as an Assistant Program Director to the pits of hell during my year as General Manager. I had some really amazing experiences as General Manager, but I spent a lot of time crying and agonizing over every detail of my job- I now realize I let my brain and body succumb to stress and suffered for it. When I graduated, I stopped listening to the station. Album 88 is the main vein of independent music in Atlanta, and I let the whole, major part of my life fall to the wayside.

Lately, though, I’ve been finding albums I loved from Album 88 rotation to add to my iPod. Stuff I had on loan with my Rhapsody account, but never actually bought. I find myself listening to music whenever possible- reading, driving, eating, studying- like when I was a DJ.

And just today Paste magazine posted a list of albums to vote on for Best Album of the 2000s. I worked at WRAS right in the middle of the decade and feel good recognizing nearly all of the albums on the list. Such a great list to go through and check off what I need to get to re-build my music library. A lot of the albums bring back memories from long days and late nights enjoying a regular rotation shift and reveling in the chance to sit in a room by myself with a never-ending playlist to do homework by for four hours. I remember friendships, parties, impromptu office gatherings- all with an splendid soundtrack in the background.

Leethal, of the Do Stuff! blog posted her “Portlandiversary” playlist today to honor her 2nd anniversary of moving to Portland. She also linked back to her moving-to-Portland-from-California playlist. I’m really loving both of those lists even if I’m on the opposite coast. I love songs with specific locations in them- I’m a sucker for any song that mentions Atlanta or Georgia (thanks, Rilo Kiley!).

Right now I’m really getting into Band of Horses again. And Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album. And all my old Modest Mouse albums. And Lady Sovereign. You just never know!

And onto my picture for this post: my new tattoo!

The first line is a quote from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. The second commemorates a good friend, Robert, who passed away a few years ago when we were both working at the radio station. The heart symbolizes a quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. I guess all three have to do with getting through life and appreciating the moment. I read both The Bell Jar and Slaughterhouse Five at the beginning of the year and can’t believe none of my teachers in high school nor college taught either of these books. Just. So. Good.

The tatt was done by Charles Chatov of Only You Tattoo on Memorial Drive, across from Oakland Cemetery and next to Tin Lizzy’s (formery Six Feet Under). I LOVE that shop. Never been in there before, but I cannot wait to go back- I can’t recommend them enough.

Next post will most likely be MUCH SHORTER (phew!) with a video of our precious kitten Nugget and info about Dragon*Con this weekend. If you’re going to the Con, consider meeting up with some other fantastic crafters/cool ladies at the Marriott Marquis’s Pulse bar around 1 pm.

Lots of pics today! Spring is out and running rampant in Atlanta. Dogwoods, both yellow and white, and cherry trees have blossomed all over the place and the rain finally let up today so I could snap some pictures.

In other words, I’m not dead… yet. My fever broke towards the end of the week and it felt like someone lifted a vest of iron from my chest and my mobility was restored. Fevers can really take a lot of out a person. I am still hacking all the residual nastiness out of my lungs, but thankfully I feel a million times better than I did last week. I haven’t quite recovered on the house-cleaning end of things, but I’m going out of town to north Alabama for a wedding tomorrow afternoon so I have big plans for the morning.

Here’s a list of things, though, so this post isn’t a total bust after a week’s absence:

- I had a big health scare last week in the midst of having the flu. As a side effect of taking Accutane, my cholesterol has shot up dangerously high and I have to make major dietary/exercise changes immediately.
+ On the plus side, more seafood to be had (got sashimi & yakitori this evening!) and I’m joining Georgia State University’s rec center as an alumna! Yay to dance classes!
+ I’ve already lost about 4 pounds by eating better and walking the baby I watch during the week all around the neighborhood.
- I can’t eat anymore at the fantastic Australian bakery in the EAV I just discovered- so many pastries…omnomnomnom.
+ I’m learning how to cook! Again! Recipes welcome!

+ I finished plying a gorgeous raspberry/pink/purple/magenta yarn yesterday and it looks really, really cute! (Pictures tomorrow in good light.)

+ My boyfriend’s dad’s wife’s daughter (we don’t call her his step-sister) had a baby boy last weekend and I get to shower him with knitwear… at the start of a Georgia Spring! (This reminds me to whip out my copy of Mason-Dixon Knitting and make some cotton bibs.)

+ It snowed last week and this week it’s been in the upper-70s. Our doors have been open to warm the house naturally. LOVE IT.

+ I finished some socks from the ‘How to Knit 2 Socks on 1 Needle Book’… but, shhh, I used 2 circs! (Other 40 inch circs are occupied.)

+ I made a March budget and am actually sticking to it. Time to make more crappy recycled notebooks for the rest of the year!

- The new cat has been peeing all over my clothes. So what if I left them all over the floor…

+ Fat Stinky is still the  & sweetest stray-turned-housecat ever.

+ Finished, thoroughly enjoyed, and was mentally-f*ed by Life of Pi, am loving and about to finish Trailer Trashed (expect a lovey-dovey email, Hollis), have Cat’s Cradle waiting on the nightstand, and just bought The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao based on the cover (and the fact that the author won a Pulitzer Prize).

- Have been babysitting like a mo-fo. (Gotta love wiping little butts and wearing vomit.)

+ Have been making boocoos of money from people who are much richer than I ever hope to be that pay me to watch their kids. And I have so many hilarious kid stories from just this week that I really need to journal. Like getting mooned by a five-year-old, teaching him that term, and then being mooned for the rest of the evening as a result. And seriously, that’s just the very tippy-top of the bizarre babysitting iceberg…

It’s been a good week. Atlanta’s weather hasn’t been too redunkulous (barring that crazy ass snowstorm), and Atlantans know that word perfectly epitomizes the strange oscillating weather patterns we have during the months outside of summer. It has been surprsingly pleasant and the trees in East Atlanta and the weeds in our front yard have begun blooming. I’m going to try to take a walk tomorrow before we hit the road to take pictures of all the varieties of magnolia and cute blossoms springing up around here. I hope wherever you are the weather is enjoyable, or at least tolerable.