High heels and I are like oil and water. We don’t get along. Or rather, I can’t speak on behalf of the shoes, which are a) probably wholly indifferent to me and b) entirely inanimate, but I for one do not like them.

I have trouble with firm ground and a solid, sensible sole underfoot.  (It’s the invisible carpet potholes, I tell you!!) One can only imagine the chaos caused by suddenly strapping me to mini-stilts and forcing my center of gravity forward by several inches. (Curiously, I’ve tried actual stilts, and have very little trouble with them. Stilts and I get along nicely.)

By when I was offered the chance to try standing on what seemed to be an entire stack of high heels glues one atop the other, I couldn’t resist the challenge. It took two kind Ustream regulars, Rynchus and SigPig, to hold me upright as I stood in them, and even then it was a little dicey. But wow!! What a view!! For a few glorious seconds, I was a mighty 5’9″!!

Then, my friend came by with his towering 6 foot ridiculous and made me feel tiny again even in the Shoes of Doom. It was something of a relief to be helped down from my perch o’ shoes and back onto solid ground.

My little sister, who we’ve seen many times before, is sixteen. Holy crap. I have no words to describe how thoroughly this weirds me out.

I still think that it’s only been a few years since *I* learned to drive, which is, of course, wildly inaccurate. So to think that my baby sister, eleven years my junior, is now old enough to be routinely driving my mom around…. Well, that’s just crazy.

Not that I’m worried about her. She’s smart, responsible, and probably more nervous about driving than I was, since I had the luxury of driving around in a old (but small) car while she has to learn to parallel park in my Mom’s SUV. (Parallel parking that thing makes ME nervous!!) Anyway, I know she’ll be fine. Hell, the biggest thing she needs to worry about is having to play chauffeur on the frequent trips between Saskatoon and Regina while Mom takes business calls.

So, enjoy the freedom of the road, little sis. And never forget to crank Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream” whenever it comes on the radio – it’s the ultimate driving song!!

Ok, you. Get your mind out of the gutter – I wasn’t doing anything like that. I was randomly trying out a crazy yoga move, just to see if I could do it.

For the record – don’t do yoga within flailing distance of a bookshelf. Bookshelves are very pointy and bruise-making.

Alberta is known for sudden weather changes. The infamous Chinook, for example, brings us a few days of spring-like weather in the deep of winter. Whole snowbanks often melt overnight.

But this fall? This fall took the cake. It was sunshine and flip flops one day, and hot apple cider and mittens the next. On September 1st. Not October, not November. September.

That’s just crazy. It’s gonna be a looooooong winter….

SDCC was a ton of fun, but seriously – five days is really, really a long time to be on your feet. We were all pretty exhausted by the time tear-down was done on Sunday. We headed for some celebratory tacos & ice cream, and then back to the house to crash. There was briefly some talk of heading back downtown to hang out with whoever hadn’t flown out yet, but the lure of the couch was simply too strong.

We laid down for all of twenty minutes before the lure of Rock Band became too strong. I mean – playing drums is still sitting, right? And you can totally play a guitar sitting down… Besides, the couches were within crawling distance of the PS3, and the temptation was simply too much!

It was a ton of fun, and exactly what we needed to unwind after a long convention sitting within range of the Rock Band 3 booth. (Which, coincidentally, looks like it’s going to be [i]awesome[/i]!!)

So there you have it – the end of my journey to SDCC. Next – Gen Con!!

Layne and I are giant ship nerds (ok, ok, Layne moreso than I…), and we were recently let loose in the San Diego Marine Museum. Much jumping around and squeeing ensued.

We first got into real ship nerdery when we stumbled across the Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian. Layne had asked for a set of the books for Christmas – no small feat, when there’s twenty books in the series!! He got enough of the books to get started, and then quickly hooked me on the books too. There was something fascinating about the details in the novels, and though I’d grown up in a place about as far from the ocean as you can get, I was charmed by the descriptions of seagoing life. When the movie, Master and Commander came out, it was just icing on the cake.

And so, to suddenly find ourselves on the very ship that the movie was filmed on was pretty amazing!!! Layne and I ran around like little kids, pointing at things and blabbing loudly about how awesome it was, and, oh, look at all the rigging!! In fact, Layne was so well-versed on the ships sails that one older woman asked if he worked for the museum! All in all, it was an awesome trip.