Hi you Buffistas! I'm not around so much but hello hello I love you!

I have recently fallen in lust with Supernatural, which has brought me back to the board, but mostly just in that thread. I check Minearverse, Firefly, Beep Me, Press, and COMM regularly, and did pretty well on that even when I had just given up on keeping up with other threads. I adore Buffistas and still consider myself to be one. I know my time zone difference isn't really all that bad, but I've decided to blame it.

It's been a pretty good year for me. I work with the best people ever and have the best job. I've started cantoring at church (solos...meep), and seem to be doing relatively ok. I just signed up to be in the pit choir for a local musical production, which seems like the best of all worlds (sing show tunes in street clothes with fewer rehearsals and no makeup or stage fright!)

I helped a dear friend pass on, staying vigil with him and other friends for his last 4 days, which was exhausting and turned out to be depressing. But, it was also life affirming and I think I was pretty good at it, so I'm looking into volunteering with hospice now. I was raised fundamentalist and left that faith not because I didn't believe, but because I couldn't follow God as I understood Him. My fear of God, and by extension of death, was still there in a big way, though. I became Episcopalian about 12 years ago, and that was the beginning of my acceptance of a different world view, of myself, and of the future. Being with my friend in his last year and at his passing was a tremendous gift, and instilled both a desire to make that time for comfortable for others and a sense of peace about it for myself.

I've spent time with family, including some really great people that I hadn't seen for 25 years or so. My parents are getting older, and while they're both doing pretty well, their age is starting to show, and it's kind of scary. I know it's the natural order of things, but my parents aren't supposed to age, dammit. On re-read, that perspective seems a bit odd, given the previous paragraph, but it all makes sense to me.

Hmm. I really didn't mean this to be a post about death and religion. The topics have clearly been much on my mind lately, but I think in a healthy way.

Oh, and I started weight watchers, lost 10% of my bodyweight, gained some of it back, but think I'm back on the forward part of two steps forward, one step back. It all comes back to exercise for me. I exercise a lot, get injured, don't at all. Blah. Now, I'm shooting for moderate but continuous.

Hi, Kiba! Hi, libkitty! Good to see your fonts!

Wow, it's delurking time already again??

It's sort of a good news / bad news on my end. I have a wonderful boyfriend now, but he lives two timezones away from me. The college where I teach is getting an amazing new planetarium, but I'm almost positive the administration won't be supportive of paying me either in money or in release time for any work I do there.

Also, I can't believe we could be in season TEN of Firefly right now. Sadface.

Hi Zenkitty, my kitty sister!

Una, I feel your pain about Firefly. Although a totally different show, I'm watching S7 of Supernatural right now, and sometimes I get heartsick because it has the combination of real characters, humor, and depth, that I found in Firefly. It's almost like it's what Firefly could have been. You know, if Supernatural were about space cowboys or if Firefly were about hard drinking brothers who hunt creatures.

I LOVE Delurking October. I don't have anything to say yet as I'm returning to watch Supernatural tonight, but Buffistas are always in my heart if not on my computer screen.

I think I'll be an early post-er this year, instead of just about the last one like last year.

Plunging in here: My mother died three days ago, in her sleep; she was discovered by the assisted living staff when they checked on her around 3:30 AM, as they do. She'd been in hospice for the last six months, coincident with moving from her independent apt. to assisted living. She'd have been 97 in six weeks. She was one of only three women in the entire Alfred Univ. School of Engineering, graduating with a BS in Glass Technology in 1938. Mostly she raised four children and had a gigantic organic garden, but in between kids, she was a project manager for George Gallup, did research and development on integrated circuits for Western Electric, substitute-taught chemistry, physics, and math in high school, played a wicked game of bridge and duplicate bridge, started the local Farmer's Market, volunteered for Meals on Wheels, and, after my father retired, volunteered in a clinic and school in Cairo while my father worked as an engineer in the ESC program. My three siblings and I are proud of her, we'll miss her, this was a tiny bit sooner than we expected, but we've been prepared for some time.

Working backwards, one of my three cats was eaten by a coyote mid-August. I found her head and one leg. Another cat down the street was taken 10 days later. My remaining two cats are grounded, and I hope to build a cat-friendly, coyote-proof outdoor area before winter rains come.

In June and July, I had a fabulous vacation to OR and WA. I backpacked for a week (41 miles) on the Olympic Peninsula, biked all around Victoria BC, hiked, biked, camped, picked fruit, had yummy IPA (beer) along the Columbia River Gorge, found a fabulous hot spring resort (Breitenbush), hung out with the Kinetic Race folks in Corvallis, as well as visited friends in OR and WA, discovering new places to bike and hike and walk on the way up and down I-5, and forging a lovely & loving new family connection with a niece who'd almost been lost to us via awful divorce when she and her sister were very young.

I was certified as an Emergency Medical Responder at the end of the spring semester (EMT-lite, basically), and am an emergency services worker volunteer in my local community.

I run hot and cold here: I'll read and post in bursts (like now!), mostly in TV: basic and premium cable. I'd love for us to have a network tv thread. I see a lot of B'stas on FB and check here at least every several weeks.

It's been a good year, and a bad year, but one thing is constant: I am so happy to have been able to early-retire two years ago, to spend more time with my mother, have less stress (I was replaced by two full time attorneys and one full time clerk), and enjoy the beautiful town and county that I pretty much only slept in the thirty years I was working across the Bay.

Wishing everyone well, Java cat

eta fix typos

Java,

my condolences but I'm glad you had more time to spend with your mother.

Oh, Java! I'm so sorry for you loss, but glad you feel comfortable to share with us.

My condolences Java, but you sound very much at peace with everything. That's such a blessing. And she sounds like an amazing woman.