My daughter and I left Anime Detour 2007 at about 3 pm this afternoon. She asked to leave. We'd been there for about 4 hours already, and she said she did't see any more events for the rest of the day that she wanted to go to. Today we watched several hours of "Black Cat," and a film called "Lupin III."

In the early afternoon, my daughter noticed that occasionally, different people, each wearing a white headband, would put a hand on her, she would look at them, confused, they would appologize and move on. Finally, in a hallway confrontation between several white-head-banded and red-head-banded teen agers, we figured out there was an organized tag game between teams identified by red or white headbands, and my daughter's "Ryuichi from Gravitation" costume just coincidentally included a red headband. She eventually took off the headband.

We'll go back tomorrow for a while. It's been really fun, and I'm really proud of her. I'm regretting we didn't get a room in the hotel, as so man others clearly had! Maybe next year.

Hi, I am at the Mall of America hotel, formerly the Tunderbird. My 13 year old daughter says all that time in line was worth it. She is enjoying seeing so many other dressed as Japanese Anime characters. She is wearing a red headband, and has a pink Beanie Baby rabbit laying on her head. We are in a room watching an anime called Gravitation. Bad news is they announced that they have already registered their fire code max of 3000 so they can register no more new walk ins.

Long line at anime con. 1 hour line half hour waiting room then another line. Im in that line now. Cell phone.

Ok I went downhill skiing today.

About a month ago, I signed my 13-year-old daughter and me up for her Girl Scout troop's trip to Trollhaugen ski park.

I drove her out there , about an hour northeast of our home, just across the Wisconsin boarder, and we met her friends and thier parents. The ski boot the lady behind the counter gave me was like a plastic cast. They also issued us each skis that snap on to the boots. It was totally painful to walk with those boots, outside in the snow. Later I found out that one of my socks was folded over and my left boot was practically cutting off my ciculation because of it.

One of the other parents, who comes here all the time, walked my daughter and me to a flat area for beginning ski lessons. The two of us got personal attention. It must be rare that they get a 42 year old new skiier, because I could see that the small groups before us and after us were all very small children. They all seemed to catch on quickly. I kept sliding sideways, to the left side , even when my skis were both pointing straight ahead and I was trying to stand still. Each teacher we had in this progression of new skier stations we moved ahead too told me it was because I was too tense, and tried to lecture me about how I should be putting more weight on the side of my foot, in spite of the fact that my feet had no flexibility in those boots at all. It was frustrating to me.

We went in and had hog dogs and pop with the Scouts, for lunch. That's when I got the chance to loosen the boots put them back on so they felt better. Then my daughter absolutely refused to go back out there. She gets frustrated, and gives up, like I used to when I was her age. I can't talk her out of it.

So I went back out without her. Back to the beginning hill. In fact behind the beginning hill is an even smaller beginning hill. Now full of enthusiastic teen aged ski teachers teaching small groups of pre-schoolers. And me. I skiied down that very small incline, and kept trying to "break" or come to a stop, by crossing my skis in front, but it never did work no matter how many times I tried again. It just made me ski just as fast, in the direction of the arrow created by my crossed skis. As my last effort, I skied down the beginner hill anyway, even knowing I wan't prepared. Of course, toward the bottom, I fell, as I had so many times today already. But I did do it, and that's what I wanted to do.

So my daughter had been sitting alone in the Trollhaugen convention center for about an hour by hereslf, by then. We turned in our skis and our boots. It felt so good to put on my shoes again, and walk around in them.

I drove her home, long before the other girls and their families left. And my husband had ox-tail soup cooking! I was so glad to be home. We watched my dvd of The Devil and Daniel Johnston, from Netflix. It was disturbing to me, due to yet another reference to a boy who was academically brilliant and ahead of the class, but disruptive and defiant. My 8-year-old son's most recent school conference was all about that. I came right out and told his teacher and his advanced-math teacher, who met with me together, that I sometimes wonder if he as Asperger's syndrome. They looked at each other and told me they'd both suggested that possibility to each other, recently, themselves!

Well I got to go take a hot bath.

I skied today!

We just had a 3-day 14-inch snowfall. I spent much of that time shoveling our driveway. I also drove to and from Buffalo, Minnesota in that blizzard, because I agreed to accompany our sales team to a client's office on Thursday March 1 , and they actually held that meeting, and didn't cancel it. It went OK. Apparently, while I was in Buffalo, all the managers behind, in the office, told everyone to go home early, and take their company laptops with them, so they could just work from home.

Friday, our company told us that if we had brought our laptops home, we didn't have to come in at all, we could just work from home. Even those of us in the call center were able to do so, because our phone calls route through our computers, and we could just redirect all those calls to our home phones. That went OK, too. My kids' schools announced that they were closed. But at 7:30 that morning, my husband called his office, and was told that they were open, and that if he stayed home, it would be deducted from his few vacation days that he has. So we shoveled him out the best we could. He backed out of our driveway...and got stuck with the back end of his car sticking out in to traffic, in the street in front of our house. And the plow was coming down our side of the street! A lady about my age stopped and tried to help us push my husband's car out. Then the plow driver stopped and also helped push my husband's car the rest of the way out of our driveway! Once he was all the way in the street, he was able to drive to work pretty well, because the roads were well plowed. Even though I tried to shovel Friday afternoon, he still had an easy time driving home, and a horrible time trying to drive up our driveway. He kept having to back up in to the street and try again to get up our icey, sloped driveway, until he finally made it.

Yesterday, Saturday, the clouds and snow flurries were finally gone. It was sunny out! I used a barn broom to get all the snow off my car. I felt like I was whittling a car out of a bar of white soap. And then I shoveled the rest of the snow out of our driveway. My husband and I tried to keep up with it while it was happening, but we did just give up and go in, on Friday afternoon. So, yesterday, we dragged our kids to a local neighborhood park, hopeing to get them to somehow play in the snow. But the snow wouldn't pack. It was all powder. So we couldn't really make a snowman, and most attempts to throw snowballs turned in to snow confetti in the air.

Today I stayed in, let my kids play video games all day, watched Mythbusters on tv, and surfed the internet on this laptop that's not even really mine. Then I got the idea that I should try to ski again. Learning to ski was one of my New Years resolutions, both this year AND last year. We only had one good snowfall before this, this year, on New Years' day. And I did take my husband's skis to a local school playground while my son was sledding. But I got frustrated and gave up. This time I drove to a local golf course, only about a mile from my house. I've seen other people ski in it, so I know other people do it all the time.

I got there, changed out of my sneakers in to an extra pair of wool socks. The skis and the bindings are my husband's , so I have to wear extra socks to fill out the shoes that go with the skis. Then I followed a ski trail left by others. Of course I fell all over the place. And when I fell , I fell in to 14 inches of powdery new snow . So the good news is it didn't hurt. And the bad news is it was like trying to pull myself out of quicksand each time I tried to get back up again. I'd push my hands down to try to push my body back up again, and my hands would just sink through the deep snow! Once, going down the smallest hill on earth, I fell so bad my foot pulled itself right out of the shoe. It did occur to me it was probably prettty stupid to go alone, and not even bring the cell phone.

Toward the end though, I caught on, and made it down a little hill by myself, and righted myself more easily when I fell over a few more times. Next Saturday, I agred to accompany my 13 year old daughter when her Scout troop goes downhill skiing at a ski resort. So I'm thinking I'll be able to honestly say I skied several times this year, by next New Years.

I checked my work email this evening. My boss sent me an email to say we have almost 300 open calls, questions that clients have called us about that we haven't answered yet, and I got to find a way to let our department bring that open call count to 190 or lower, by Friday. I don't even want to go in, tomorrow.