dolari | Oct. 23rd, 2008

Oct. 23rd, 2008

Sometimes, when you need a diversion, the Universe grants it.

I'd been feeling kinda down for a while now, and last week, my niece in Second Life told me about a project she was working on, where her and a bunch of friends would get together in a 40s style area, in period outfits, and take a shot of a street scene.

Knowing that I'm a fan of the fashions of the 30s and 40s, she asked me if I wanted to take part in it. I did, although because of my hours, my time would be kinda limited. We talked about fashions and whatnot, and I mentioned that I preferred the "working girl" fashions of the time, pointing out I'd REALLY like to have something akin to Polly Perkins in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow or Lois Lane. She was thinking more along the lines of Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday.

We went shopping for clothes yesterday, and thankfully it wasn't very hard to find a really common middle ground. We picked up a rather nice pinstriped blouse, pleated skirt, seamed mylons and black pumps for my outfit.

Unfortuantely they didn't have the hair I liked. As much as I like 30s fashions, I'm not a huge fan of the hairstyles of the era, especially the "demonhorn" kinda fashions. I was looking for a longer style, less upswept and curled at the ends, but couldn't find anything like it. Instead I settled on a straight hairstyle, pulled up in the back with floppy bangs. It was hard to fit on my oversized anime head, but eventually, we got it working. Really wish I coulda gotten a big floppy Carmen Sandiego trilby hat, though. :D

Today, I showed up at the Bay City Bayjou, in full regalia (After jumping into my Deep Space Nine outfit as a joke for a second ("That's 1945-1955, not 2245-2255!" --Mari)) as Mari got us all into position and those of us who had a way to walk-in-place "walked" to give the scene some life. I stood near the entrance to the movie theater, near another avatar and a beagle (I'm assuming we were supposed to be a couple) and held still as I could (although I did shift around a bit as I tried to get a better "angle"...if we were supposed to be a couple, we did have our backs to each other).

Once the pictures began, I crashed! Hopefully my ghost stuck around long enough that as Mari took pics, she got me in them. I did come back and more pictures were taken but I'm not sure how well I came out in them. I haven't seen the final pictures...so time will tell. :)

After it was all done, we all got together in front of the bijou for a cast picture. And in the hour and half it took to get us all there and directed and photographed, I didn't think about work once. And let me tell you, I needed that hour and a half. :D

With the show over, I took off the 40s hair I had, and put back my original hair, and you know what? I don't look half bad in this outfit. ;)

Current Mood: amused

With the show over, I took off the 40s hair I had, and put back my original hair, and you know what? I don't look half bad in this outfit. ;)

Current Mood: amused

Sunday, August 10th - San Francisco, Day Two

Sunday was going to be a slow day for us - we'd go to see a few friends, check out some sites in Oakland, and then head back to Casa Smith to pack up for the next leg of the journey.

First up, a visit to go see

hurricane_amy an old old friend from High School living in Danville. We got a quick tour of the split level house her family is living in now, and it's really a nice location. Very close to the freeway, yet overlooking a beautiful meadow on a steep hill. I hope they never build anything else on it, because it reminds me of the house my parents have now - back when they got it, we had nothing but fields and nature. Now it's all tract housing.

From there we headed to a Marie Calender's for brunch and we just spent about two hours catching up. I'd just seen Amy a few months earlier, but to be honest, before that, we hadn't seen each other since at least 1996.

Sadly, I'd forgotten to get her the Big Red we'd bought for her. :(

After dinner we headed into Oakland for a long overdue get together with

jennconspiracy, who could possibly be one of the very first people I ever met online. We caught up with her canning everything and anything she could get her hands on. Jellis, jams, chutneys, pickles, the works.

Turns out she and her neighborhood had gotten together to make preserves and such from everyone's little victory gardens in the neighborhood. We sat and talked about many eco-vegan-things, many of which I'm noticing are in force up here. They weren't kidding that the west coast is REALLY into it's ecology.

Armed with several pictures (Jenn's an accomplished photographer) and jars of tastiness, we headed out a few hours later so Emily could tour some of Oakland's street trackage, where we got to see Amtrack rip a nice deep gouge on the tracks as it passed by.

On our way home, we'd gotten it into our heads that We Wanted Slurpees. We searched All Over Oakland for a 7-11 that had (1) A slurpee machine and (2) public restrooms. One thing about the West Coast, I'm noticing - NO ONE HAS PUBLIC RESTROOMS ANYWHERE. Not sure what the deal is, but, my god, people....

Anyways, we found an ICEE place instead of a Slurpee place, so we stopped there instead. I filled up our ICEE jars and managed to spill a little bit of it as I was taking it off the "tray." Suddenly, the cashier was stomping towards me complaining about "you people spill so much ICEE! DO you know how much that costs me?" and then continued his little tirade for waht seemed liket wo or three minutes. I just kinda stood there and thought. "Water, sugar. They're not THAT expensive." Eventually I paid up and as I left, he muttered under his breath how much "you people spill ICEE!"

Yeah.

We slowly made our wat back to Casa Smith where we packed up and got ready to go, including a quick run of laundry. While I was in the garage, I took the time to snap a few shots of Little Car, Gwen's automotive pride and joy. And for a car with almost 50 years on it, it's only got half of my trucks mileage. :)

After a little more Second Life, a goodbye was said to Gwen (she'd be gone well before we woke up), and a goodnight to Bon (we'd be leaving when she did). We were showered, clean and ready to go on to our second-to-last-stop, Eugene Oregon.