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On Saturday, we took photographs for my friend's mom's wedding. It was such a touching ceremony, although there were more staff than guests (10 family members, MuddDude and I taking photographs, and a bunch of hotel staffers).
On Sunday, 'dude got really sick, so I spent the rest of the weekend babying him. 'Dude's got a crappy immune system.
I packed my stuff and moved most of it back home on Sunday. Today I feel a little relaxed now that I've taken care of all the big items. Now to slowly pack what remains and clean up the house so I can get my deposit back.
On Saturday I went to the Victoria & Albert Museum with my friend Nancy, to see the new Bollinger Jewellery Gallery. We only got round half the gallery, because Nancy is in her 70s and couldn't manage the whole thing, and we also wanted to have lunch and talk a lot too.
My favourite piece was this Merman, whose torso is a single pearl, with a huge ruby in his tail. I also loved the pieces from the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, from 1890 to 1935. Just gorgeous.
Then after putting Nancy on the bus back to her rented apartment, I called in Harrods, as it's a while since I've been in there. It was very busy, so I didn't stay long.
Yesterday I went to the Farmer's Market in Walthamstow, but the area I wanted to walk was sealed off by police because of yet another teenager stabbed to death a few hours earlier. I bought some good cheese and some raspberries. I was amused at people paying top price for organic blackberries, because they're ripe and free all over the forest at the moment.
Today a friend and I went to Maldon, with her dog, Shadow. It was good for him, because he needs to mix more with other dogs and this is a good place for him to meet them - there was lots of dogs of all shapes and sizes, all on their leads, so he couldn't get scared or get in a fight.
We had a lovely lunch in a cafe and just enjoyed the day. We were all tired out by the time we got home. And my cats are sulking big time because I let a dog come into the flat. Oh well, they'll live.
This evening, football and 'Make Me A Supermodel' on TV (no spoilers please, it's the US series you have already seen). All in all, a pretty good weekend, apart from the stye that's been driving me crazy. It was horrible on Saturday, my cheek was all swollen too but it's gone down a lot now and should, I hope, be gone altogether in a day or so.
Saturday, I took my gf out. We watched The Dark Knight in IMAX. Then we went to Fun & Games and played the hell out of some skeeball (and air hockey, and those hoops games where the basket moves). Won a bunch of tickets and gave them to a little (I mean like tiny) kid who did a nice deed (picking up tokens and returning them rather than pocketing them). Then we went to Legal Sea Foods and crammed ourselves full of D-liciousness. Then, like an old married couple, we went home and proceeded to fall right the hell asleep.
mr. gaspode's parents were in town, celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. As a gift, we put them up at the Waldorf-Astoria. mr. g's sister and her boyfriend were in town on the Saturday night and we all went out for dinner and then back to the Waldorf for drinks and to hang out in their fancy room (they were upgraded to some VIP section!)
Yesterday, the out of town visitors left and I napped and read Jane Austen books and watched baseball.
On Friday night I overindulged in spirits to the (probable) point of semi-obnoxiousness. Saturday, I recuperated. On Sunday, I went to my first Catholic baptism (or baptism of any sort, for that matter). It was great to be there and to see my best friend (mother of the baby; lives quite far away from me), but the deacon who performed the baptism irked me a little. I don't think I get offended very easily, but when he went on at one point about how before Jesus Christ the world was a very dark place, and no one had any dignity and everyone was worthless, I was likely, "Um, helloooo, Jew in the hizouse! Gotta disagree!" (I didn't actually say that, or anything, of course.)
made a futile attempt to patently avoid the DNC, which failed miserably.
went to the Tattered Cover in LoDo on Saturday morning to pick up a book I'd ordered, and remembered why I had asked mr. lfr if there was any way we could somehow magically skip town for the weekend. No dice, and the TC was disgustingly overcrowded. Traffic was a nightmare, even on a bike. Downtown was mobbed with platoons of federales, backed-up taxicabs and idiots jaywalking midblock or meandering cluelessly amidst the gridlock on rental cruiser bikes. I saw more than one example of cycling that under any normal circumstances downtown would be a ticketable offence. I nearly tboned some moron on my way uptown as he s l o w l y wandered across 4 lanes of traffic.
Here's a clue for all you enviro wank delegates and soul-sucking parasitical hangers-on out there: absofuckinglutely NO one appreciates you being "green" if you're simultaneously being an asshole.
I then rode about forty blocks uptown allaway out Colfax to the nasty part just so I could go to my fave taco dive for lunch and a Tecate just to clear my palate of all the idiocy and maybe attempt to diminish my cynicism towards the party at large. No dice. Roughly five minutes after I locked up and sat down, not one but TWO cabloads of inappropriately overdressed loud, rude, Crackberry-brandishing asshats showed up and mobbed the place, got obnoxious with the waitstaff and stood around blocking everyone's path. They were so out of place per the usual hungover hipster / college kid early Saturday afternoon patronage that I can only assume they were with the DNC.
I hid in the house all day on Sunday and demolished drywall. It was the only thing I was in the mood for. This morning I was half an hour late to work due to RTD shutdowns and the associated fuckery related to commuter hell through the mob scene.
DNC my ass. I cannot WAIT for this pack of jackasses to get the hell out of here.
Oh, I forgot to say that on Friday, MuddDude and I had "date night", which meant going to a steak house, getting some weird ice cream, then watching Pineapple Express. I've totes got a crush on Seth Rogan, but he'd never date me because somehow in his world, stoned losers get hot drama chicks rather than nerdy library chicks.
absofuckinglutely NO one appreciates you being "green" if you're simultaneously being an asshole.
Wow, close to nothing. Watched a bunch of The Wire, finished season 1. Barely got out of the house.
We joke how on the weekends we're heroin addicts without the heroin. The TV trays and delivered food containers don't help.
Friday I laid around watching TV and eating Chinese. Saturday, I hosted a successful ONTD meetup, visited some of NY's higher-end department stores for a little browsing, and went to a housewarming party. Sunday I went to church and IKEA (practically the same thing, IMO, except that IKEA has meatballs!)
1. Spent Saturday afternoon walking around the Manchester neighborhood signing people up to vote, had a great time. People gave us two white guys walking around a 90% black neighborhood some funny looks until they'd see our Obama buttons. Got lots of good vibes and great conversations and even a free burger at a street BBQ.
2. Spent yesterday afternoon turning over the dirt in the back "yard". It's a damn 15"x15" plot of dirt and I'm on my third weekend trying to turn the mass of weeds and vines and garbage and broken glass into an actual grass lawn. I found a four foot long piece of aluminum that looks like it came off a car (the previous owners were rumored to have been running a "chop shop" out of the garage.
3. Managed to get in two runs, one three miles and one for five.
Saturday: walked around downtown for 3 hours racking up steps on our new pedometers.
Sunday: took the pooches swimming and debated whether to try to have foreign objects removed from mrs chewie's tires that day or switch cars today and I'd do it for her. Plan B reigned supreme and we relaxed the remainder of the day.
Saturday my kids and I painted with poster paint and colored with cray-pas. They are already very excited about Halloween so we painted pumpkins and fall leaves and ghosts and crows.
I bought a rug and some beautiful fabric and a couple purse patterns.
I cut up some pretty ikat fabric that I have had for a while to make pillows.
I had planned on visiting my parents on Sunday. They have a new alligator in their pond and we were going to go over and gawk at it. But the neighborhood hooligans showed up. So the kids played outside and fished and ran wild and I opened all the windows and cleaned my brains out to Michelle Shocked.
Oh yeah, we went roller skating too. At the roller rink I grew up skating at. It's still dumpy but fun. Although, I think someone complained about the music and they started playing the same song over and over again about a princess.
Wedding in Duxbury and Plymouth MA. Unbelievable weather, everything went off without a hitch. Got to spend every minute with the woman I love in beautiful locales surrounded by amazing people. One of the best weekends of my life.
Then came back to reality Monday morning as Metra and 303 Taxi proved that just because you do something everyday, doesn't mean you can't f it up spectacularly for no good reason other than not being organized.
Worked all weekend. Work work work work work work oh god I'm still working work work work work.
I did stop long enough last night to roast a nice salmon filet in butter (mmm, fresh wild salmon!!) and watch Mad Men. Then work work work work work...
We spent the weekend at my grandparents' house down the shore. The girly and my grandmother were absolutely inseparable. It was so cute. They played games and tried to dig to China and checked the crab traps and played with minnows. But the highlight was when my daughter got to watch baby turtles hatch! Teeny little turtle babies!
It was great to watch the two of them together, but to be brutally honest, also kind of hard. The pessimist in me kept thinking, "She's 85! Don't get too attached!"
i smoked, drank and orgasmed to some amount of excess.
Then there's the stuff i shouldn't bring up.
Get somewhat attached. It's part of life, the bits that get lost. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone, so i, of course, know measure what i have when i have it against how bad i will feel when it's gone.
i have a story about knowing you're in love by the immediate worry of them dying on you suddenly.
i have just hit happy hour face first.
Apologies all around.
Friday I had a lovely wonderful fancy-ish dinner with ikkyu at a lovely wonderful fancy-ish Italian restaurant. We sat on their patio, and there was a rehearsal dinner, I think, going on at the other end. I was sitting facing the entrance, and it was kind of amusing watching the people come in, take a second to brace themselves for dealing with family, and then put on their game faces.
Saturday I lazed around the apartment like a lazy lazy lazy-thing. And I watched embarrassing tv, because ikkyu was gone. (Did you know that the Soap Network broadcasts old Beverly Hills, 90210 episodes? It is awesome.)
Sunday I hooked up various electronics that needed hooking up, unpacked and alphabetized my CDs, talked to my brother and father while sitting outside on our patio, and generally hit that nice balance between "productive" and "relaxed."
I also watched Sleeping With the Enemy, which I didn't really like, but I'm glad I saw the end, because we watched the first half-hour in my Domestic Violence class and I'd been wanting to know what happened ever since.
Yikes, might be a little late, but for clarification purposes, it was not MY wedding, I was just there with my girlfriend. I can see how that might not be the most obvious interpretation.
But thanks for your congrats! I'll hang onto them until the two of us finally stop being so lazy and get hitched.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
