Had a particularly lovely evening with my honeywuzzle tonight. We heard Brahms’ German Requiem at the Hatch Shell, during which we saw the space shuttle and space station pass overhead (thanks to golux_org for confirming that that’s what it was), checked out the very interesting Liberty Hotel (a converted Victorian jail), and had a lovely time on the porch talking about politics, education, science, culture, and childhood (as one does). Life is good. And we get to snuggle with Chickenfinger tonight! Yay for neurotic kitties!

I’ve had a lot stacked up to post about lately, but the only thing to talk about right now is that plumtreeblossom’s cat Rowley is dead.

( Cut for those who can’t deal, but I’d love it if those who can read do. It’s not gory. )

I love you, sweet Row-Row. And I love you, dear plumtreeblossom, and I am so glad that the logistics worked out so that I could be with you so quickly and stay with you through this.

I have lots of wonderful weekends, but I just had an especially wonderful one.

It started on Friday night, when warlord_mit and surrealestate had a wine tasting (with several selections from warlord_mit’s ample cellar) followed by a Chicago singalong. That was just about the most fun event I’ve been to since, well, probably the last party at their place. :-) plumtreeblossom and I had a great time.

On Saturday [EDIT: after a yummy breakfast of catching up with beetiger, her son projectmothra, and lediva at Johnny D’s], we needed to pick up new veterinary supplies for her cat Rowley from Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in JP, and since I really miss Jamaica Pond and plumtreeblossom has taken up long walks, I suggested that we combine pleasure and business and take a walk around Jamaica Pond first. Which we did, and we had a lovely and relaxing time and got to see lots of dogs and lots of scenery. (I did, however, break the screen on my old small camera while I was carrying it, though. Good think I have the awesome new one, and a camera on my cell phone.) Nice to enjoy the outdoors, now that Massachusetts has finally decided it’s summer after a couple months of Novembers.

After that, we went to Angell and picked up Rowley’s supplies and window-shopped for quite a while in their adoption center. Had a wonderful time visiting with all the animals! Then we went home to our respective houses.

Sunday was a workday at theatreatfirst, so I got to see plumtreeblossom again at that, as well as lots of other wonderful Firsties. It let out very early, so we had an early dinner together outdoors in Davis Square before going to her place to take care of Rowley.

( Don’t read if needles or related things upset you. )

And today I went in to town to meet plumtreeblossom for the Indian lunch buffet at Shalimar of India in Central Square. Yummy food and a nice little daytime mini-date.

Oh, and today was a good day to take off from work, apparently. I most often take the Green Line down Huntington Ave, and I would have been significantly delayed. That was a couple blocks from my building at work. I’m really glad nobody was hurt!

Sorry for my extreme radio-silence lately. I’ve been mostly sort of keeping up with other people’s LiveJournal posts (albeit with more skimming than usual), but I haven’t had time or brainpower to post or do much commenting. Anyway, since I’m sure you all are wondering whether I’m still alive, here’s some of what I’ve been up to lately:

Home repairs: Just after cathijosephine moved out, the bath surround (the panels on the wall around the bathtub) fell off. Well, large bits of it did, anyway. It had never been all that convinced it wanted to be attached to the wall, and it gave up. I had been thinking for a very long time (since before I moved in, come to think of it) of pulling it off and repairing whatever damage it had been put up to cover, but had never gotten around to it, in part because it involves not being able to use the shower for extended periods of time due to wating for various bits to dry. Anyway, since I didn’t have a housemate for a bit (anybody want to move in? Quincy’s got lots of history and lots of yummy restaurants! Won’t be available for a bit yet, though.) I decided I’d go ahead and try that. As is the way with these things, it quickly became a much larger project than I expected it to. It was just three days ago (after starting the project about a month ago, although of course I’ve been working on it in spurts) that I finally had a day where I left the bathroom looking better than when I started.

This has all taken a lot longer because of not having a working car any more, so when I discover I don’t have the right tool or I didn’t get enough tile adhesive, I need to either carry stuff on the T (and on the walk home from the T) or rent a Zipcar. (I have to say, I’m really enjoying using Zipcar. But still, it means having to plan stuff in advance.)

Theater: As I did last year, I’m rehearsal-assisting for plumtreeblossom’s show in the summer one-act festival at Theatre@First. Unlike last year, I’m also going to be on the run crew, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. Means I can’t sit in the audience for the actual performances, but it means I get to be on stage, albeit with the lights dimmed. Also unlike last year, the show plumtreeblossom is directing is one she wrote herself! My darling is having her début as a playwright! I’ve read a bunch of short stories she got published before I met her and really enjoyed them, but this is the first substantial writing she’s done since I’ve known her, and I’m thrilled to see her getting back into it. It is a really funny show being put on by very talented actors and it’s going to be a blast! Many of the other one-acts are also really funny too, including the one being directed by surrealestate (who is directing for the first time, if I’m not misremembering). I am really really looking forward to this and you should all come see it.

plumtreeblossom: Things continue to be delightful in my relationship with plumtreeblossom! We have lots of wonderful dates and delightful times. Tomorrow we are going to see Up for the third time. :-) Her cat Rowley who had been frighteningly skinny for a while has been putting on weight, which is really encouraging. We’d already been mentally preparing to lose him. Not sure if the subcutaneous fluids the vet has her giving him are what made the difference or not, but he’s doing a lot better.

Work: Work is busy, but rewarding, and I feel like I’m accomplishing stuff (although projects in IT, as in homeownership, tend to take several times as long as you think they should).

cathijosephine: I’m delighted that I’m still seeing lots of cathijosephine despire her having moved out. We’ve been trying to have dinner together once a week (often with darxus and m_c_t if he’s in town, and sometimes with xmelancholia). Chickenfinger (her cat) has adapted really well to moving back to her condo; we were both worried she’d be upset about moving back to a much smaller space, but she had no trouble adjusting at all.

(Other than seeing a lot of plumtreeblossom her housemate and cathijosephine and her partners, and the Firsties, I’m feeling a bit undersocialized and missing my friends. Have been popping my head in at some lovely parties though, at one of which I got to catch a glimpse of the delightful weegoddess during a visit this side of the pond.)

I feel like there’s been other important stuff over the past few weeks, but I’ve run out of brain so I’m going to stop for now.

Lots of fun lately!

Friday after work, I met plumtreeblossom after work for fried chicken. The Popeye’s in Kenmore Square where we’d been planning on eating was insanely crowded due to a ball game, so plumtreeblossom suggested we turn it into an impromptu picnic. We walked a few blocks with our food to the Esplanade and had a lovely dinner by the Charles.

From there we walked to the Charles/MGH T stop, and on the way we saw a family of Canada geese with three cute little goslings! Pictures on Flickr (scroll down a bit).

After stopping at plumtreeblossom’s house to dump off our stuff and get cleaned up, we went to a combination birthday (yay!) and going-away (boo!) party for Theatre@First stalwart and all-round sweetheart big_jewfro. We were unfortunately too tired to stay very long but we had just a wonderful time. plumtreeblossom managed to drag me into the karaoke room, which I thought I wouldn’t enjoy, but I had a fabulous time. It was a truly delightful party. I hope the Boston area ends up getting big_jewfro and his sweetie back eventually, but wherever he settles will be a big bright spot visible from orbit.

When we got to plumtreeblossom’s house (fortunately only a few blocks from the party) we collapsed right away.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at local favourite The Burren and then went to Earthfest, an annual eco-themed music and marketing event on the Charles River Esplanade. I’d never been before, but plumtreeblossom’s been several times and said this year’s was the most crowded she’s seen. This is a free concert with an associated vast stretch of marketing tents, all with some connection ranging from direct to very tenuous with ecology. Oh, and food vendors, of course. We had a lovely time, but the crowd was very dense and it was a lot of walking and waiting. Lots and lots of cute dogs to look at! And the weather was spectacular. I’ve put a few photos on Flickr.

Saturday evening I helped eisa unload at her new apartment. Due to the large number of people and the relatively small amount of stuff it was very quick, and the traditional pizza was yummy. I’m delighted to have her (and her dogs) back in the area.

Now, I think, it’s time for bed.

PS — During the course of the weekend, plumtreeblossom and I discovered that the longest of the three escalator flights at the Porter Square T stop is exactly one hundred kisses long.

As usual lately, I’m too busy living life to write about it — I haven’t even really caught up on reading LiveJournal since my New York trip — but here are some recent highlights.

On Friday, plumtreeblossom and I got together with our LJ-bereft friend J. at Namaskar for yummy Indian food and catching up. We really like him, and we hadn’t seen him in ages, so that was great.

On Saturday morning, we took plumtreeblossom’s cat Rowley to Angell for training on giving him subcutaneous fluids (and in the process giving him his first administration of subcutaneous fluids). He did not like being put in the box and travelling — he had an even harder time with it than last time — but he had no problem with the actual procedure, which plumtreeblossom performed like a pro, and he seemed to perk up afterwards.

On Saturday evening we went to a fabulous delightful party with lots of wonderful snuggly people. A cute woman quite justifiably admired my honeywuzzle’s legs. Got to catch up with a few friends I hadn’t seen in a while. Thanks so much to our wonderful hosts who created a spectactular party!

On Sunday morning, we got together with zzbottom and library_sexy at a new-to-us Portuguese place in Union Square, the Neighborhood Restaurant and Bakery. The food was very very yummy, and the catching up was great. Afterwards we stopped into a nearby comic-book store, where plumtreeblossom got an Obama action figure (yes, she’s a serious fangirl; so am I) and I got another zombie-themed board game to add to my collection.

And on Sunday afternoon I did some yard work and a little bit of tidying up in the house, and finally got around to posting something to LiveJournal. :-)

Sorry for my long absence here. I’ve been too busy enjoying life to post about it. In fact, I’ve started to post a couple times recently and not gotten very far. So, since I don’t seem to have the stamina for a long post, here are some bullet items:

• First, the bad news: As plumtreeblossom posted here, her lovely grey Siamese Rowley was diagnosed with kidney disease on Saturday. But evidently it hasn’t gotten too bad yet, and the vet says he’ll definitely get some weight back with a low-protein diet and subcutaneous fluids, and it might even cure him. So we’re very glad we took him in. (He’d been gradually but very steadily been losing weight over six months or so.)
• Everything else is good, starting with a lovely visit to see eisa in New York City a couple weekends ago, which involved good food (as always) and meeting a couple of her friends. It also involved getting introduced to a new TV show (on DVD), whereon more later.
• Mare and I saw Theatre@First’s production of The Winter’s Tale, excellently directed by dietrich. Loved the staging, loved the somewhat quirky play, loved the performance. Congratulations to all!
• The news from the vet was not good, but it was great to be there for plumtreeblossom and Rowley, and I’m really glad we got him to the vet. And that morning plumtreeblossom cooked me banana pancakes and bacon. She must love me!
• Besides The Winter’s Tale, I’ve been enjoying a lot of classic or retro movies and literature:
• On the bus on the way to New York, I finished the utterly bizarre Edison’s Conquest of Mars (Wikipedia; Gutenberg). ( Cut for length. )
• Preparatory to starting Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I read Pride and Prejudice, and enjoyed it quite a bit. The funnier bits reminded me a little of Saki.
• plumtreeblossom and I watched a DVD she bought of a 1964 adaptation of The First Men in the Moon, which we both enjoyed a lot. ( Cut for length. )
• The TV show eisa introduced me to was Mad Men, which is retro in a different sort of way. ( Cut for length: Mad Men vs. Star Trek. )
• And it’s not historical or retro, but I also watched a weird French movie called La Moustache. ( Cut for length. )

OK, that was fairly long after all. Now it’s time for me to go to bed. Good night, all!

Last night plumtreeblossom and I joined quem98 and a bunch of her friends for a really delightful dinner that involved meeting a bunch of interesting people for the first time. I wish I knew all their LJ names. It was a wonderful group of people. (Dinner was at Namaskar, and I had the Lamb Kashmir which I highly recommend.)

Then today, plumtreeblossom and I went to the circus. The nonprofit Big Apple Circus, in particular, which was set up outside Boston City Hall, with all their tents in a big concrete courtyard. (It’s weird to feel completely like you’re indoors in the concession “building” and to notice a street light poking up through a hole in the floor.) There were a couple of impressive aerial acts, a pair of impressive jugglers, a guy who did implausible things balancing urns on his head (ending with one that must have been about sixty pounds if it was actually ceramic, and it probably needed to be ceramic and that heavy in order to have the kind of momentum it did), lots of silly and entertaining clown acts, acrobats on horseback, trained dogs (all shelter rescues), and lots and lots of fun. I got lots of photos. Let’s see if I get organized enough to post them.

After that, I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye to my sweetie, so I asked if she wanted to sit somewhere for some coffee. We ended up at Faneuil Hall having an early (and tasty) dinner, instead. (And on the train on the way home, I realized we’d forgotten the coffee we were originally searching for, despite passing some yummy coffee-roasting smells.)

So, a wonderful weekend.

Lovely weekend overall, although it had apparent (but not real) tragedy in it and a certain amount of plans gone slightly awry.

plumtreeblossom and I had dinner on Friday night at Mike’s (if I’m remembering correctly) and then wandered over to Hollywood Video to pick out a movie for the night. We ended up getting Bon Cop, Bad Cop, a Canadian comedy-thriller about an Odd Couple–like pair of cops from Toronto and Montréal who have to work together when a body is found right on the Québec-Ontario border. I didn’t remember much about it, but I had heard something about it on the radio and knew I had bookmarked it as something I was interested in seeing. It was pretty fun, despite not being a genre either of us watches much.

On Saturday we ended up at Kelly’s Diner for breakfast, and then plumtreeblossom had to go run an errand, and I went back to her place. When she returned (surprised to find me there — the plan had been for me to go on ahead to my place and she’d meet me there, but I was too lazy) we went back to Quincy.

We found what at first appeared to be a very disturbing situation at my house, which plumtreeblossom has written about, so I won’t go into too much detail. Short version: we thought darxus snake Dorothy had died, but after we warmed her up she was fine. Major scare! So glad she’s OK.

OK, I’m falling asleep, so I’m going to go ahead and post this even though I haven’t caught up to the present.

In other news, my hip is all better (and was by Thursday or Friday).

On Friday I met plumtreeblossom after work (see her weekend write-up here) and we took the train to Quincy Center together. We had dinner at Outback Steakhouse. I don’t like their corporate politics, but I love their food and sometimes I just need a hunk of cow. As it turned out, I’m very glad we did, because I ordered an Australian beer I wasn’t familiar with — Cooper’s Brewery Sparkling Ale — and it was so good I ordered a second, and then went looking for it at the liquor store later in the week. (If you are wise enough to follow my example, be cautioned that it’s fermented in the bottle, so there’s some sediment in the bottom; you want to pour it into a glass.)

After a yummy dinner, we went to my house and watched Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, which was very funny, and a little bit of the original 1930s exploitation/propaganda movie, which was a bonus on the DVD.

( Another few meals, another movie, some geekery, and some games with darxus and cathijosephine. )

At some point in the weekend, plumtreeblossom took a whole bunch of pictures of grim warrior beowabbit, including the one that I eventually munged into my new userpic, and I also took some pictures of her cats, who were sleeping together on her bed looking especially cute.

The one bad thing about the weekend is that towards the end of the workweek I’d been having little twinges in my hip, and they got considerably worse over the weekend. I’m going to need to drive to the T tomorrow (where parking is $7); there’s no way I can do the normally 15-minutes walk to the T station with the ice that’s on the sidewalks. I’m not sure if this is a return of my sciatica or if I did something to my hip slipping on the ice. But if a hurt hip is the price for all the joy and fun I had this weekend, it was worth it.