On All My Motions

Recent history and what’s currently going on:

• Susan is getting cataract surgery, this month or early next month. Meanwhile, she’s lost nearly 70 pounds.
• Our newest granddaughter just had her first birthday.
• We’re now actively planning to move to China before the end of the year.
• It’s hot.

More as more develops.

I really wish stars of Buffy the Vampire Slayer would stop dying. Three now in less than a year and a half, and every one of them younger than me (Anthony Stewart Head was born four months after I was).

When I think of Buffy, my mind automatically goes to the Core Four: Buffy, Giles, Xander, Willow. However, Michelle Trachtenberg was the first to go — the first blow to our memories — which means I have to expand my view of those I consider foundational. If Dawn was one of those, we have to count Cordelia, and then Joyce, and I’d probably have people calling in artillery strikes on me if I tried to leave out Tara.

(And there’s Angel, of course; once he got his own series, I keep forgetting to count him as a Buffy character.)

Even with that expanded list, nearly half of those pivotal actors have died, and Head was the only one who could be considered to have had a normal lifespan. Moreover, though Buffy was the first place I paid him much attention — I remembered the classic Taster’s Choice commercials once reminded of them — he kept appearing in other things, and it was always a treat to see him.

I’ll follow some of the tribute posts I’ve seen listed on su_herald here and here, linking to Giles stories of mine in memory of the man who played him.

Starting in 2013, I participated in summer_of_giles every year except 2015, so I’ll go from there.

“Under the Gun” was my first such story. To cross-post with another event I was involved in at the time, I wrote it as a remix. I did my best to showcase Giles’s forceful rationality and underlying ruthlessness, both of which were essentially created by Tony Head’s portrayal.

“Into the Abyss” was almost certainly my best Giles story. I don’t have any problem dedicating it to the man who made the role his own.

“Listen to the Mockingbird”, while not my most recent Summer of Giles fic (that was last year, while this one is from 2023) is, I think, better representative of the character who came to mean so much to us.

Finally, moving outside my own work, “the Mirror Broke (But All My Friends Were Laughing)”, by 23Murasaki, is just plain good enough that I’d hate to leave it out.

We’ll miss you, man. We’ll miss being in a world that contains you.

Susan and I are finally away from ‘home base’ again: spent a weekend back in Branson, and now we’re in Iola, KS for maybe a month. Susan has family here, and doubtless she’ll find museums or other stuff for us to visit.

She’s currently at 58 pounds lost following her gastric bypass surgery; in fact, she’s barely a pound heavier now than I am, which hasn’t been the case for several years. Unsurprisingly, some of her clothes are too big for her now, but she’s in no rush to buy new ones because she doesn’t know how long she’ll keep losing weight. She thinks she’ll take a try at getting by with stuff from Goodwill till she stabilizes.

Finally, the wife of one of my nephews is due to give birth sometime in the next 2 to 4 weeks. Currently, my brothers and I are tied in number of descendants; I have two children and two grandchildren (4), my younger brother has one daughter and three grandchildren (4), and my youngest brother has three children and one grandchild (4) … but the impending birth will break the tie, and not with me the winner. I like winning … but then, my grandchildren are the most adorable BY FAR, so that counts.

Earlier this week, I was guessed at fifteen years younger than my actual age. (So was Susan.) Even if the guesser was deliberately underestimating, I figure he was trying to stay within the bounds of plausibility, meaning he probably did think I was 7 to 10 years below what the calendar tells me. I’ll mark that as another win.

Hey, we take what we can.

While I spend most of my days on internet browsing (political blogs, fanfiction, sometimes online movies), my wife is more inclined to read Kindle and follow various interests on her smartphone.

( Details under the cut. )

(Yes, today’s userpic is chosen for irony.)

Though Susan’s gastric bypass surgery has been successful overall, a follow-up has been necessary.

( Details under the cut )

Ironically, her weight loss stalled while the nausea made her almost unable to eat; it’s a careful balance of diet and activity, and she was sidelined for both of those. Now we can get back to what was working so well for the first few months.

Meanwhile, I dropped another five pounds myself. We’ll see how well that continues, as well.

We had another tornado warning last night, spent an hour in the shelter while monitoring weather reports (with all the other people likewise following the same alert, too many of whom brought their damn dogs in with them). The warned tornado, if reports were accurate, passed over — or nearby — without ever touching down anywhere close.

It was 1:00 in the morning before I made it to bed. I didn’t have any trouble getting to sleep, though (I almost never do), but Susan basically didn’t sleep until after a morning medical appointment.

Yeah, yeah, done and gone. But that’s our life these days.

Our granddaughter Ruby turned 9 months old recently, which occasioned another follow-up medical check.

( Details under the cut )

So, the current state of things:

From her most recent high weight, Susan has lost 40 pounds. From my most recent high, I’m down 24 pounds. More than that, neither one of us has been particularly hungry.

For her, it’s the result of gastric bypass surgery. (Which I argued against, wishing there was a way to achieve her goals that didn’t involve permanent body modification. It’s working for her, though, and working great.) For me, it’s the result of 1) never eating out, and 2) limiting myself almost totally to proteins and fats: hamburger, chicken, shrimp, eggs, ham, cheese, as close as I can get to zero carbohydrates. Oddly, because Susan has been fighting off a long cold and because we’ve had some fairly low temperatures recently, neither of us has been doing that much exercise. Which, to my mind, means we can push things even better when we are able to exercise.

Susan is lighter than she’s been in more years than I can remember. She weighs less than I did two months ago. I’m looking forward to seeing just how well she can do.

And me, too, but mostly her.

The news of Nicholas Brendon’s death … well, I won’t say it hit me hard, but I felt it.

There are several tributes listed here at su_herald. I’m not eloquent enough to make a serious contribution, but what came to mind was a Xander drabble set (here), and a meta about Xander’s character (here).

I liked the guy, and kept wishing career success for him. My wife added him to our Rosary prayers last night. So this is where we are.

However well we may say it, or fail to say it, he’s remembered.

We caught a few good breaks today.

( How we got here. )