BOOK

We're heading back to Neverland this weekend, and the set is coming along really well.  Hangman's Tree is up there, and in the background you can see Skull Rock and a pirate ship too.  This weekend we'll have Captain Hook with us, and Peter Pan will be with us too, along with Maddie as one of the Lost Boys.  We don't have as many boys with us as cast members, so it will be more like "Lost Girls."  But we'll make due - I don't see a problem with a change in roster of the Lost Boys over time.  Peter rules the roost, and Captain Hook and his crew are always out to get them.

It was a nice day outside, although we had a lot of rain later on.  It wasn't anything damaging, but it did result in quite a few downpours.  Still, it was nice to sit outside this afternoon.  We've been doing all kinds of filming this week, sometimes tossing pumpkins off a three-story roof, and sometimes doing somewhat of a horror movie spoof with cream pies, and sometimes filming a sermon segment where Pastor Lance was talking with the audience about thinking "on these things."  

It was a perfectly pleasant fall day, the kind where you want to take the laptop outside and sit on a table out there and make the Great Outdoors your personal office.  In fact, we did do a bit of that today, getting out of our windowless, cold office, to take in a little sunlight.

I got something in the mail today, the latest box from the They Might Be Giants Instant Fan Club, and this one is the box we've been waiting for:  an early release of their new project called "BOOK," which actually comes inside a large book.  The book is an interesting collection of photos combined with uniquely typed lyrics from songs on the last three projects, including "BOOK" of course.  The typography is done with a typewriter, and is just as interesting as the photography inside.  There was a CD of the new release on the inside cover, but there's also a code for a download off the internet, which I immediately downloaded.  Tonight on the treadmill, I listened to the entire thing for the first time as I marched along.  Always exciting to get new releases from these guys - I remember hearing them for the first time in perhaps 1990 or so, and then picking up each successive new release as it came out.  I remember getting Apollo 13 when it first came out, looking for a copy at a record store called "Turtles" in Gainesville, which is where we also bought our concert tickets at the time.  That's another story there - but that's the location we picked up tickets to go see the band at Athens for the first time, and then other venues over the years too.  As for the box that came today, it also had some other items too, including a hard copy of the "secret music" that we downloaded a few weeks ago, plus a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, and a thank you card of sorts that I'll probably keep within the book.  This membership has gotten me two different books now, plus three CDs, and a few downloads of concerts and the Roman songs too.  I'm looking at what I've just written here, and it's a lot, so I'll wrap it up here by saying it's a great collection.

Tonight we were at taekwondo again, two classes back-to-back.  Maddie helps teach in the first, and the second class is a leadership class where she was swinging around her staff with such speeds that you can hear it across the room like a propeller.  We dropped by the grocery store after that and got some milk - and some ginger beers too.  That's our latest thing, sharing a couple ginger beers on the way home, or sometimes just before homework.

Maddie doesn't have school tomorrow, as it is a work day for the teachers.  So we can sleep in a bit.  We watched "Coco" tonight, and kept tabs on the Braves game, which was supposed to be a lock of sorts.  Their relief pitchers were having to pitch, and meanwhile, our best ace was up there on the mound.  Additionally, we were up three games to one.  So of course we lost big time.  It wasn't even close.  The definition of a "comeback" in sports does not apply at all when sports teams play against Atlanta.  All we have to do is win one game out of the next two, but even now all of Atlanta fandom is wondering if we can do it, because our sports teams are legendarily famous for snapping defeat out of the jaws of victory.  We get full of hope and team spirit, and then just like that, we find ourselves wondering why we bothered having hope.  Because we're from Atlanta, and that part where we win the championship is meant for other teams.  Still, we'll hope and cheer and get all excited.  Maybe this will be the year.  But we're very, very used to being let down.

Anyway, tonight we read from "Unforeseen" again, and then after that we said our prayers.  It was a decent day today, more of a work day.  I think Maddie's report card is out, but I haven't seen it yet.  I don't know much about school.  Anyway, we went to bed tonight after prayers, our "happy thought" being the knowledge we don't have to set that alarm for tomorrow.