Onwards!

This week at work, I think I finally get to start my pilot study for my smoking cessation game app; if it works well, I’ll be resubmitting that proposal in the fall. I should also get to start coding the ~160 pages of interviews that Z. did, looking for good material to use in our supporter booklet and website. Tomorrow I’m going to hide inside from the sunshine and get started on all of that (although today I went to the office and although my face got pretty scrunchy and tense from the light, it didn’t seem to trigger a migraine).

D’s only been on summer vacation “for real” since Friday evening, but already he’s reached a few milestones in his various video games – he’s maxing out some Realm of the Mad Gods stats, and made “General” in Halo Reach at his dad’s, and tonight made “100%” in Super Mario 3D Lands or whatever it is. Tomorrow I’m going to get him onto some non-game projects, too, I hope.

“Puppet Show!”

Today’s randomly drawn activity with D. was the creation of a puppet show, for the entertainment of J. and Lillian. It lasted about three minutes, and we used the arm of the couch as the stage, hiding behind it with our “puppets” and props. The featured actors were four stuffed bears, two brown ones (a thuggish gang) and two light-colored ones, who declared themselves in a drawling falsetto to represent “Goodness and Light.” The former attacked the latter, but one of the brown ones (Corduroy) apparently perished, grieving the big one (Scruff), and causing him to go for his guns (D’s laser pistols). The polar bear (Elijah) then went for a weapon of his own (a nerf machine gun), but the blond bear (Blueberry) panicked and fled. Elijah had his weapon pointing in the wrong direction at first, and then decided he didn’t want to use it anyway, so Scruff attacked, but Elijah knocked him off the couch and then succumbed himself, The End.

Lillian watched our three rehearsals in the afternoon, from her throne by the door, and let out a single big meow when we were done. What was she thinking? J. was then reasonably entertained, I think, when we surprised him with our performance in the evening, and he took three pictures of us.