A very special birthday wish...

...to the unutterably cute Katie Roper, daughter of billroper  and daisy_knotwise, who is a whole year old today! (And thanks for posting the pictures, Bill! Of course she loves chocolate; what good fannish baby wouldn't?) Many happy returns of the day to the proud parents, since the baby is obviously not old enough to read this herself yet, or to understand it even if read to her. (Though with B&G raising her, she might well surprise us in a year or so...)

Post-housefilk report

Many, many thanks to the lovely and talented quadrivium and her husband for hosting last night's marvelous housefilk in their palatial manse, an hour north of Birmingham, AL. (Having an Athens in AL and GA both is very confusing to a poor dumb coonass like me.) catsittingstill surprised me (and others, I am sure) by coming in all the way from several states over, as were surrdave, autographedcat and kitanzi, adamselzer, sffilk (my ride), steviebomb, Brian from Dragon*Con TV, and several others. The Crowells' young son also amused us by periodically invading the circle costumed as either a ninja or a superhero.

I actually got off a lot more songs than I had expected, given both the surfeit of talent present and my own raging bronchitis; the evening's highlight for me was having the distinct pleasure of watching Cat laugh and wince at the same time when I got to the line in "She's Always A Werewolf To Me" that I stuck in there as a wink-nod to her ages ago ("Ohhh, she takes care of herself / Won't get raped more than once / She's the least of her kind..."). (Those of you who remember what song won her a Pegasus Award six years ago should have no trouble at all guessing why.) Our resident newly-published author, Adam, showed why he is obviously the next Jonathan Coulton (remember, you heard it here first!) with songs such as "The Three-Bean Casserole War" and "I Thought She Was A Goth," and our hostess and host naturally delighted us all with virtuosa keyboarding/singing and virtuoso cooking, respectively. (I finally got to try fried green tomatoes—made famous here, and even more so later here—for the very first time; despite having grown up in the deep South, somehow I'd never had them before...and they taste a whole lot better when you wait for them to cool down after coming out of the frypan and don't burn your tongue.)

All in all, it almost made up for not being able to afford trips to either Philcon or crystalgee's wedding in New Orleans, both of which were held this weekend. Once again, thanks to Mary and Wes for hosting, and to all the rest for letting me be such an incorrigible filkhog.