An’ it’s a good day for movin’ along! Yes, it’s a good day, how could anything go wrong? A good day from mornin’ ’till night! Yes, it’s a good day, for shinin’ your shoes! An’ it’s a good day, for losin’ the blues. Everything to gain and nuthin’ to lose, ‘cuz it’s a good day from mornin’ to night!

Ah, Perry Como… that’s my new soundtrack for today. 🙂 Yes, it has been that good.

But first! I need to tell you about yesterday evening. I went to a release party at Best Buy for ‘The Lord of the Rings; The Two Towers’! It was fantastic. I got a flyer for it in the mail, that said a party would start at 10:30. Turns out it wasn’t so much of a party. I was expecting geeks on parade, people in costume, the whole works. All I can say is it’s a very good thing I didn’t whip up a Galadriel costume before heading out the door. 🙂 Instead we were expected to wait in line until Midnight, when they’d open up the doors of the store so we could go buy the DVD. That was really ridiculous, I thought, but I made the best of it. Also, I wanted to stick around cause they were giving out prizes. I was hoping to win a cool statue of Gollum, but unfortunately my name didn’t get drawn for that. However, just for being one of the first 100 people there, I got a bag with a free t-shirt and a cool pin with one of the characters on it. And since my Mom was there too, we got two bags! Now I’ve got two t-shirts (no one else wanted one), and pins with Gandalf and Aragorn on them. (Yes, I’m an LotR geek. I haven’t read the books, I just get this excited about the movies.) Not only did I get a goodie bag, I also got two free Two Towers posters. And, to top it all off, I won a free copy of the soundtrack to the second movie on CD! How fun is that? It was worth hanging around for an hour and a half.

Besides all the free stuff, I did have a fun time waiting in line. Thankfully I got in line behind this extremely cute Korean family. It was a Grandpa, a Dad, a 5-year-old boy, and a 3-year-girl. The boy kept flirting with me – as little boys do – by peaking around and smiling at me, then hiding, then peaking out again and again and again. It was really funny. So I smiled at him, made faces, let him have fun, until finally he started sticking his hand out at my fuzzy ug boot, and then I’d try to catch his hand, and he’d jerk it away. We played like that for a while, until finally I decided I didn’t want to sacrifice my feet to the Geek Party Gods, so I sat down. The little boy sat down across from me, and continuing to flirt, he began to flick his Father’s leg. Trying to keep his Dad from getting really irritated, I instead offered my hand for him to punch, flick, and slap. He had fun with that for a while, then his sister joined in on the game. Finally, the boy said, “My name is Austin, what’s yours?” I introduced myself, and then the girl interrupted again, “I’m Ashley, and I’m three.”

One thing led to another and we ended up having an origami party on the sidewalk. We all sat down in a little triangle and started collecting scraps of paper leftover from the little yellow armbands the Best Buy people stuck on all of our wrists to show we were part of the first 100 visitors. You know how stickers have peel-back paper? That’s what we collected and played with. They were probably no more than an inch squared, but it was certainly entertaining. That kept us occupied for probably half an hour; they made hats, X’s, various odd shapes, while I made a lovely flower garden for Ashley. She thought that was very funny, after she got over insisting that they weren’t flowers, they were rockets.

They were the funniest little pair on the planet and we got along great. Eventually we were having so much fun that we became a kid magnet. Another young girl started hanging around the edges, so I invited her to join us in building our flower garden. Her name was Lavinia, and she was very quiet.

When we ran out of little white squares of paper, and after the kids had grown tired of about five minutes of chasing bugs, Ashley pulled some crayons out of her cute little purple backpack. We then proceeded to color on the sidewalk (I’m sure Best Buy loves us for that, but that’s what they get making us wait for so long for no reason.) Eventually my Mom – who had escaped to Wal-mart to avoid the monotony – came back and gave us a map of Maryland to draw on. The kids loved that – especially Ashley, who spent a great deal of time drawing the world’s largest moustache on Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich. When she finally declared the moustache finished, it covered the poor man’s entire face.

Finally, at 12:10 Best Buy opened their doors. Austin got so excited that he cheered, “Yay! We’re finally going in!” We all leapt up, and Austin immediately grabbed my hand as we marched in the store. Austin’s Dad thought that was too funny and told Austin, “You’d better ask her if she has a boyfriend.” I laughed and said I didn’t, to which his Father prodded Austin and said, “See, son, your chances just improved! Go for it!” The whole event turned out to be the best Midnight Geek Party I’ve ever been to. 🙂 I just love kids. They’re so automatically accepting. If they see you smile at them, and if they get that little super-secret kid-sense that you seem like a nice person, then they’ll start to play little kid games with you. They’re generally so happy and loving. It’s fantastic, I wish more adults would behave that way.

And now for today! As I said before in my short little blog, my first niece ever was born this morning. I’m really thrilled about that. Baby and Mother are doing well, but they’re both staying in the hospital over-night. Monica’s feeling just a bit ill, and the baby could use a little extra monitoring for some slight breathing problems she was having initially. But all is apparently well now. I’m very, very happy that the hospital’s playing everything on the extremely safe side and just keeping them in the hospital. I think it’s kind of scary when hospitals shuffle newborn babies right out after they’re born. Life shouldn’t be that much of a rush, let’s take it easy. Obviously it was a man or an apathetic insurance company who made the decision to try to shuffle mothers through so fast – you try passing a screaming 8-pound watermelon-sized thing through a very sensitive oriface and tell me that I’m supposed to go home right after. Nuh uh, not gonna happen.

In other news, again as I stated, Mr. Producer-man (whom I suppose should have a name by now – Dean Love is his name) is very intrigued by the whole “How to be a Princess” idea. We’re going to meet up later this week after he wraps production on something for Dateline, then we can chat about it and see where to go next with it. I’m hoping the first step will be a firm handshake to seal the deal, then a trip to Nordstrom to make good on their half-promise to provide my clothing for the show. After that, Europe. Once in Europe, a firm handshake, a contract, and a name-change for me to seal the deal with the Count. Sounds like a plan, eh? I think it sounds like a mah-vellous plan, dahling. 😀

The good news for the day doesn’t end there, oh no no no. Guess what I got in the mail. Here, I’ll read it to you:


“Dear Customer:


This is your receipt of $75.00, to cover the fees for filing articles of incorporation with this office. The effective date of the certification of incorporation is August 21, 2003.”

It’s official!! You may now call me Owner, Chairman of the Board, and El Presidente of Prophet, Incorporated. The Daily Prophet is official. 😀 I can’t start collecting donations just yet, I still have to register with the IRS, but this is highly exciting stuff. My business is all legal now in the state of Virginia, and this is also very good news because I was worried the name Prophet, Incorporated might have already been taken. But it’s alllllll mine. 🙂 Could things get any better than this all in one day!?

This rules. I really needed a good day. I *really* did. I think maybe it’s good luck to post my crazy plans on the blog, it seems to get things done. My ultimatum worked in record time, this whole Count business seems to be taking a big step forward, the Daily Prophet stuff is getting taken care of quickly; it’s just working out so well. Maybe it’s time for a big experiment… Hmm… what shall I ask for? How about a loving, intelligent, supportive boyfriend? If not that, I’d settle for an ice-skating rink of a nearly flawless diamond. Or a BMW Z4 3.0l. I’m not picky.

I’m just kidding, of course. Sort of. Not that I’d say no to any of those things, under the right circumstances… 🙂

Another absolutely fantastic thing from today is, as I said, I got to meet one of my good internet friends, Michelle. We spent several hours wondering around Borders book store, looking at random things and taking silly pictures. I had a great time – she was very funny, entertaining, and easy to talk to. No awkward silences at all, which can sometimes happen during first-time internet friend meetings. Here’s a cute picture of the two of us. I’m trying to be brave in posting random snapshots of myself. This one I think is actually pretty funny, despite the fact that I look like a twelve year old. I’m 18, honest… Heh, what’s really funny is she looks older than I do, and she’s three years younger than I am! What’s strange is I was always told I looked so much older than I really was – when I was 12, everyone thought I was 18. Now it seems to have flip-flopped; now that I’m 18, everyone thinks I’m much younger. At the Best Buy event, one guy actually asked if I was over 13. I was pretty shocked, considering I was wearing a pretty flattering shirt at the time. I can honestly say I’ve never met a thirteen year old who’s shaped like me. Oh well.

Tomorrow is going to be another good day, I think. In the morning I’m going with that woman I mentioned a few days ago, the one from Argentina, to visit her premie baby in the hospital. See, she doesn’t have a driver’s license, so she needs people to drive her there. My Mom has been volunteering lately, but I’m tagging along this time because she don’t have any pictures of her baby yet. So I’m going to take my digital camera and try to get some really fantastic pictures of them. Her husband’s coming too, so I’m hoping to get some really great photos of the three of them. I’m excited about it.

But now I really need to get some sleep. Good night!