MuddDude and I went to a party, then hung curtains.

Actually, we got a lot of chores done this weekend, since our AC is still broken and we didn't want to spend any time in our house. I also came in to work for a few hours on Sunday, but I couldn't access the file I needed, so I went home.

mr. gaspode and I were in DC for some R&R, a little baseball watching and a lot of walking and eating.

The food at the Museum of the American Indian is great.

I went for a long walk and saw some goslings. Cellphone pics were too crappy for an OMGoslings post though.

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It seems cuteporting is harder than it looks.

Friday, I played hooky and finally put my fence back together post-weeping-tile redo.

Saturday I have no recollection of. Weird.

Sunday, breakfast with in-laws that was hellish, and sitting beside my m-i-l was my mother's day gift to mrs. richat. Then I drove down to Pearson international and picked up my pals who were arriving back from their European tour. Man, they were greasy looking, and pretty fried. They'd played Guildford in the UK Friday night, woke up early and drove 1200kms to someplace in the Netherlands to play Saturday night, then woke up early and drove to Frankfurt to fly home!

I had a really good weekend. I saw The Fall with Hermitosis (or whatever he is calling himself now) and it was great. We both cried.

Then I finally got around to going to the hardware store and bought electrical tape and repaired some old bunny-chewed wires.

I also went to the Brooklyn Botanic gardens and smelled all the good lilacs.

Saturday I worked (and pulled something in my shoulder, my whole upper body is sore). yesterday i went grocery shopping with Pips. Today's my day off, but it's too cold and rainy to sit on the porch or go out, so I'm sitting here drinking beer and listening to Cream sing 'Tales Of brave Ulysses.'

I winced my way through a performance by a local orchestra.

Saturday we went to the beach. Sunday to the parents. I also spent time here talking nonsense.

jonmc's shoulder injury brings back bad memories. I recovered pretty quickly for the amount of pain I was in. Hope yours does too, jon.

Saturday I went to Franklin for the gem & mineral show. It was actually pretty fun, if work, and I bought myself a moonstone ring and some plastic bracelets, cheap cheap, wholesale. Sunday I went to the arboretum with my mother and took pictures of plants, which was a nice mothers' day mellow thing. In other news my home computer is totally fucked - completely infested, thank you teenage son and limewire, argh, horrific, need to nuke from orbit - and that is a big drag. Bah.

I spent the weekend in Ashland. Among the highlights was this play. The guy who wrote Ave. Q wrote this and it's only been presented a few times. But if you get a chance to see it, SEE IT!. It is hilarious, and also I left the theater crying, in spite of myself.

The only pic I took was this one, but it was very amusing.

Managed to clean up the guest bedroom. Found a dead mouse. Need to buy a new backrest and comforter. Went to see new Errol Morris doc. Still think Lynndie England is scum. Started in on master bedroom, but have no idea how long it will take.

Didn't feel well most of the weekend- tummy ache. Went to a HORRENDOUS chinese buffet, which didn't help. Skipped church- didn't feel like getting out of bed. The salad place on Sunday- love that place. Watched "Coach Carter" and rode my found-on-the-street exercise bike for an hour (well worth the cost!) Went to "Broadway Bingo" and had fun even though I didn't win anything, because the money went to BC/EFA.

danf who?

essexjan- Jeff Whitty.

The highlight of my weekend was feeling an immense electrocution-like pain shooting up the left side of my back when I took a step while walking downtown yesterday. Which was a highlight only because whatever happened seems to have released, jostled, or manhandled whatever nerve or muscle was out of place back into place, and my lower back seems to have stopped hurting.

So it was a pretty blah weekend. A three-hour training session that was a complete waste of time; a four-hour shopping trip which I stupidly started at Store With Dresses For Women With Tiny Rib Cages, and I should know better than to frustrate myself right off the bat like that because getting straitjacketed by silk organza and having to hop around in one's underwear while wriggling and dislocating shoulders in order to extricate oneself is just not fun, no matter what anyone else has told you; and a two-hour nap in front of the America's Next Top Model marathon which meant that I woke up every hour trying to figure out if I wanted to be on top.

I had an awesome weekend. The weather here has been fabulous. Saturday I took my big comforter to the launderette, as it won't fit in my machine, but I dried it on the line at home. I kind of slobbed about Saturday, but Sunday ...

... Sunday was the last day of the Premiership. It was the closest last day EVAH! Nobody knew which of two teams - Man Utd (my team) or Chelsea - would win the Premiership. And nobody knew which three out of four clubs would be relegated (except for the bottom club, Derby County, which is officially the Worst Team Ever In The Premiership).

It was very, very tense. I could hardly bear to watch the game but it was worse when I flipped over to the Chelsea game and saw they were attacking.

In the end, Man Utd won the Premiership in style, and with a whole lot of luck (Paul Scholes is one jammy bastard*) and I was leaping around the living room, scaring the cats, yelling "Giggggsssssyyyyyy" as Ryan Giggs scored the goal that sealed it. It was sweet.

I've had a day off today, did some washing, cleaned the patio doors and nearly locked myself out (the catch on the outside of the door is weak), tried my new ceramic hair straighteners for the first time (awesome), went to an AA meeting and met a MeFite for lunch. And I got a free rucksack with the Evening Standard. Well, it cost me 50p, the price of the paper, which I left for someone else because it's shite.

Lame in-joke that probably only I get, TPS.

We welded! Or learned how to weld, actually. We're trying to make a grape arbor out of rebar, so the weekend was spent gathering such rebar (not an easy task in metropolitan DC), cutting some pieces, and trying to get said pieces to stick together. We didn't make any real progress in our project, but we did learn a lot. We were looking forward to getting more done, but yesterday's rain put an end to that--our "shop" is the back yard.

I drove the 4 hours to Homer on Friday night, getting to partake in the yearly ritual of The First Glacier Burger Of The Summer:
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There was a big family meeting about money, and even though I went into it expecting some huge I Don't Need Your Damn Money You Bastards from a few of my siblings (maybe even me included), there was no drama. We all signed the paperwork and accepted the checks and stayed for dinner.

I got to ride sy sister-in-law's bicycle out the Homer Spit and back, got to wander through my dad's rusting cars with my camera, got to let my dog run outside without a leash. I got to put flowers on my little sister's grave, and got to put my bare feet in the cold ocean.

It could have been a better weekend, but it could have been much, much worse.

Friday night the mister and I played Scrabble and did laundry.

Saturday we did a bike race in the wind and snow (!!) - it was warm and sunny at the start line and freezingfuckingcold and snowing sideways at the finish line / summit. 9 miles, 3,600' of elevation gain, and the last 3.5 miles is on dirt (which turned into mud, of course). It was so windy at the juniors' finishline that they were being blown around like the little 70-lb grasshoppers that they are, poor little guys. It was so absurd it was actually really fun. One of the guys who passed me on the ultra steep section after it had really started to snow looked over at me, and said "hm, gloves - what a really smart idea!" (I was wearing them, he wasn't) - because it was so warm and sunny at the start that most of us took a bunch of layers off. It was fun and hard going up, but it was totally sketchy and scary and unbelievably cold riding back down - the top of the climb (the dirt road section) kinda looks like that set on Lord of the Rings where they're climbing up the pass from Minas Morgul. You can look down onto the switchbacks below and it basically resembles a muddy spiral staircase. Good times.

Yesterday we laid around the house and read comics until 10AM, which is insanely sleeping in for us, then got up, puttered around in the garden and then took a lazy ride out to a Colorado wine tasting. Went to a fabulous northern Italian restaurant for a fancy dinner that I had a coupon for from work.

If you ever get a chance to try a Colorado Cabernet Franc from the Western Slope (Palisade / Grand Junction area), then by all means do it. After doing some tastings and talking to some knowledgeable people, Cab Franc appears to be emerging as the standout varietal of the region.

danf who?

Oh I know how you are. . .*smile*. . .it's not that easy.

This weekend could've been much worse, considering the fact that everyone actually ended up making it out to a public restaurant WITHOUT being completely pissy (there was minor pissiness, but that's to be expected when any bunch of us get together).

The power outages at work were full of suck, but the worst wasn't the weekend.

Worked on car renovation project over the weekend. My nephew is the mechanical guru. Unfortunate discovery leads us to the knowledge that the engine will have to be pulled and rebuilt. (His task w/ my help.) Don't know how that's going to fit into the budget. But, it's a great way to get to know him as an adult.
Ah, bonding over bondo - it's great!

Of note:

Spent Saturday morning at the farmer's market doing surveys and tabling, being social and eating delish vegan burger. Followed by a dump run, followed by an unplanned evening in as I discovered the transmission of my car has decided to give up the ghost.

Sunday, biked downtown for coffee at Starbucks and a walk around town in the sun, then worked in my garden for a couple hours, including building a nifty bean teepee and transplanting an enormous tarragon into 3 new areas. Finally, pizza and sleep.

I got rid of three large bags of clothes and haven't touched my sweater shelf yet. This allowed the mister to move my tallboy/lingerie dresser into the closet to make room for our standing fan. The standing fan was in front of the big dresser and made getting into the drawers a pain in the arse.