Marilyn and I bought this great house in Fort Wayne this spring. Marilyn moved into it at the end of May when her lease expired at the apartments and I joined her in mid-June. (I'd hoped to be in Fort Wayne on May 22nd, but I figured it'd be best to try and finish the RoboHelp book in Seattle without the added stresses of moving. I was partially successful in this.)
We also bought a truly gorgeous wedding gown for Marilyn, which even has a satin train. You'll see photos of it soon enough. BTW, I've set up a basic web site for the two of us at www.marilynandjohn.com, so if you haven't stopped in there yet, please do! (I've purchased a couple of other domain names recently, including www.squidlips.org (just for the fun of it), but none of them are set up yet. I'm looking into the possibility of hosting my own web server, but I've got plenty on my plate at the moment.
The latest RoboHelp book took a lot longer to get done than I'd planned on. Brenda and I had planned on getting the thing finished by the end of March in time for the STC conference in Nashville, but the dear programmers at eHelp decided that they'd whip out another release with lots of look-and-feel changes to the product. This caught everyone by surprise, including the company's Marketing department (who also didn't appreciate this, either). Bleah. So the book slid into the period when I was planning on packing everything up and getting ready to move. This was Not Fun, but it finally got done in late June and off to the printer.
I went to Tucson at the end of February for the inauguration of the William T. Burgess Scholarship Fund. Bill and John were there, as were a number of other friends and former students. I'd made a memory book for him as a surprise with recollections of Bill from lots of his students over the years. He loved it.
I did some speaking to STC chapters: the Touchstone 2002 conference in Oakland, Austin, TX, and Tampa, FL. It was wonderful seeing STC friends all over and I have to say for the record that I really like Austin. It redeems Texas insofar as that's possible. I didn't have a lot of dates scheduled this summer or fall, knowing that I'd be moving and then getting married, but I'm beginning to see some speaking engagements at conferences happening this fall now.
I sold some new buttons to the button company, my favorite of which was "How'd you like to curl up in bed with the author of a good book?" (For author friends: I have extras of these. Let me know if you want one.)
Marilyn's younger daughter, Susan, finished her last year in high school. She's about to move out to Fort Wayne with us for a few weeks in August, then head off to school at Concordia College in Moorehead, MN (which is only not Fargo, ND, by virtue of a state line). Marilyn's son, Lars, is going to stay in Tacoma, probably living with his father. And Sarah, the eldest, was being fought over by 5 (!) universities for who had the pleasure of paying for her Ph.D. in Classics. Sarah ended up choosing U. Penn, where she'd already done post baccalaureate work.
I did my last show with the Washingtonians in late April, "Can't Stop the Singin'!" The theme was annual "Scrapple County Jr. College and Vocational/Technical Institute Choral Contest and Sing-abration!" There was a performance by Angel's Overbite, an all-girl (and one boy) group from Holy Heart Academy for Orthodontic and Oral Maxillo-facial surgery. I sang in two sub-choirs and also got to play the banjo for the big production number about Lizzie Borden. I was very sad to be leaving the group behind, but I was even sadder that this then proved to be the last show for the Washingtonians as a group. Everything has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but it was a fine thing indeed and the world shall be poorer for the lack of new concerts. I'm hoping that it may be resurrected at some point in the future.
We'll be mailing the wedding invitations shortly--a major undertaking--and unpacking boxes for the next few months. And just when I think we'll be about done with boxes, we'll be getting the last couple tons of stuff from Marilyn's condo in Tacoma. Oy!
I'm looking forward to the wedding in September. I'm enjoying being with Marilyn. There are lots of things to do this summer and it's all very exciting stuff!
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