Another lovely weekend with plumtreeblossom. On Saturday we went to a sheepshearing festival¹ in Waltham with teratomarty and trouble4hire (big thanks to them for posting about it!) and had a lovely time. It was great hanging out with them, and great doing country-fair things within easy reach of Boston. (I drove, but the festival venue is bus-accessible.) While there, we bumped into mrpet and, lady_anemone. Anyway, after the festival, which was huge amounts of fun, the six of us wandered Moody Street and then had yummy tapas for dinner before plumtreeblossom and I went back to my house, where we watched the first two-thirds of Lust, Caution.

On Sunday, we went to a Poly Boston dim sum organized by a wonderful person whose LJ name, if he has one, I don't know. We had a wonderful, wonderful time. Thanks so much to the organizer!

Last night was the monthly Poly Boston dinner at Bertucci's (the first one in a while plumtreeblossom's been able to make it to, because of theater commitments), and tonight plumtreeblossom, cathijosephine, and I get to go see Eddie Izzard perform! Life is incredibly full and fun.

And this coming weekend plumtreeblossom and I are finally making a trip to New York City.

Whee!

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¹ Sadly, the venue has already taken down the web page about it. If you are luckier than usual, I will eventually get around to posting some pictures, though. Because, you know, you all appreciated the Topsfield Fair pictures and the pictures of our trip to DC to meet bcat1 and spacechicken so much.²
² That I haven’t posted yet. Those pictures.

plumtreeblossom and I have been having a fabulous time with spacechicken (who cooked us a great breakfast this morning) and my sister bcat1. So far it’s involved lots of shopping and lots of coffee. After two days of driving, it’s a treat to be chauffeured around town. We spent a lot of time today in the trendy-boutique area of Durham and had a lot of fun. And bcat1 and spacechicken are just tremendously fun hanging-out-and-chatting people.

I’m so glad my girlfriend and my family like each other!

Oh, we’ve also been having some good adorable-cat time.

I’m too tired to do justice to the lovely time I’ve been having the past few days, but here’s the capsule version:

On Wednesday, the 26th, drove to Rochester. (Lots of happy fun stuff happened before my trip, too, but I’m hopelessly behind so I’m just going to start fresh.) Gorgeous driving weather. Arrived in time for dinner at plumtreeblossom’s mother’s house (where her brother and niece also live). Had a great time with them. Had an especially great time with Jack, their obsessive-compulsive border collie. I feel guilty encouraging them, but I love excessively enthusiastic jump-all-over-you-and-lick-you dogs.

plumtreeblossom’s mother had generously gotten us a hotel room, so we went there and had a lovely time. It must have been the free wireless that made it so delightful. Yeah, that was it.

On Thursday, I woke up with the birthday girl, and her family came to meet us at a diner for brunch. (Mykonos Café; the food was wonderful.) Then we went back to her mother’s place and had lovely hanging-out time, and then got on the road.

On the way, she returned a happy-birthday phone call from a couple old friends, P. and E., who now live in Southampton (in Western Mass), and we got an impromptu invitation to dinner, which we accepted. They are really delightful people, and their dog is a delightful dog (as affectionate as Jack, but much more calm and disciplined).

We got to plumtreeblossom’s house very late, but I didn’t fall asleep on the road, and neither of us had to work in the morning.

Today (Friday), we had a leisurely morning, had brunch at a diner near her (I loves me some diners), and then ran a couple of errands together — fixing the internet on her phone (which took the folks at the Verizon store all of 15 seconds once we got seen, and now plumtreeblossom knows the magic Just Please Make It Work Again Dammit code) and getting me an eye exam and ordering me some glasses that plumtreeblossom described as “hot”, all emphasized just like that. plumtreeblossom speaks in well-formatted, standards-compliant semantic HTML. (The eye exam was mainly for contacts, but I need a new pair of glasses, too.)

And I had crockpot Kalua pig waiting for me when I got home. And it just occurred to me that I probably also have a lot of mail waiting for me. Should go bring it in, I suppose, but I think instead I’m going to collapse into bed, collapse directly into bed, do not pass GO, do not collect $200. I am debating whether to take my shoes off. Maybe I’ll compromise and take one shoe off.

I’ve had a wonderfully social last few days.

On Wednesday a bunch of us hung out with surrealestate to celebrate her birthday. It was a delightful gathering in honour of a delightful person! plumtreeblossom and I had a great time.

plumtreeblossom and I went back to her place afterwards, so I got to wake up next to my sweetie and have coffee with her. On my way in to work Thursday I got Grigori Yefimovich¹ inspected.

Thursday after work I met cathijosephine, and drove with her to xmelancholia’s, where we caught up for a while, cathijosephine gave xmelancholia some excellent socks, and I got to play with big huge wonderful friendly dogs (a mastiff and a German shepherd). Yay for doggie time! And yay for seeing xmelancholia; it had been too long.

Friday docorion had arranged to get group-rate tickets to see Handel’s Messiah performed by the Handel and Haydn Society at Symphony Hall (very near where I work). My typical inability to get anywhere on time was in evidence, but in a somewhat unusual fashion: I somehow managed to get there an hour early. Anyway, I crashed docorion’s dinner nearby and at the correct time, we were all back at Symphony and plumtreeblossom and the rest of the group congregated successfully. The concert was delightful, although I felt a little odd at something so liturgical. I had never been inside Symphony Hall before, and I loved checking out the décor. I’d have loved to see what the original paint job looked like (there was very elaborate moulding and detail work, but it had all been repainted in a neutral colour). I think we all had a great time. Thanks, docorion!

Saturday plumtreeblossom and I got together with dan4th and dabunny at their place and ordered in Thai food and had a lovely time. Along the way, I learned probably three or four little facts about hockey, which at least doubles what I know about the game.

This morning (Sunday morning, although I guess technically I mean “yesterday morning” at this point), plumtreeblossom and I had a yummy and relaxed brunch at The Burren, and then I came home and resumed work on my plumbing.

My life is good!

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¹ My car.

cathijosephine is looking for a new home for her sweet cat Chickenfinger. Here’s her own post about it.

Really, can you resist this cute little fuzzy face?

[Copied from email I just sent to a mailing list.]

Hi. So I was just down in my basement and I heard some rustling. Turns out there's a skunk in the corner. My renters have been moving stuff out of the basement, so I'm guessing it got in when they left the door open or snuck in while their backs were turned.

Any advice on getting a skunk out of a basement without getting sprayed? My first thought is just to open the door and hope it leaves, but what if it decides it likes it better indoors (as I do)? And what if it decides its family should come join it?

So this morning as plumtreeblossom and I were drinking our coffee and eating our muffins on her second-floor balcony, a particularly courageous squirrel showed up on the railing and hung out watching us. plumtreeblossom proposed the entirely plausible theory that it was interested in our muffins, and tossed some muffin crumbles towards it (about halfway between it and us). Sure enough, it came and checked them out, ate the smaller crumbs off the decking, and took a large piece under a wicker loveseat to devour at leisure. We tossed it some more, and it came and sat and ate in the open no more than a yard from me for a while, and then took its bounty back up on the railing and ate watching us for a while. Then it bounded off the railing into a tree.

Yay for city critters!

plumtreeblossom’s mom has been visiting her this weekend, and I spent a bunch of the last couple days with them. After work on Friday I met them at the Kendall Square Legal Sea Foods for dinner. I forget what the fish I had was (it was a special, so I can’t just check the online menu), but it was deliciously prepared in an elegant sauce that involved lemon, butter, and mustard, and it was “breaded” with shredded potato, which worked very well. plumtreeblossom had filet mignon, and her mom had lobster.

Then this morning I brought over corned beef and some veggies, which we put in plumtreeblossom’s crockpot for the day while (after bacon and eggs which plumtreeblossom) we went to the Aquarium for the afternoon. It was unusually crowded (neither plumtreeblossom nor I had seen it quite that crowded before, and we got a wheelchair for plumtreeblossom’s mom, who broke her foot a couple months ago and isn’t up to lots of walking yet, and it was quite a challenge getting through the crowds to see the exhibits with the wheelchair. We’d see a gap we could squeeze into and start for it, but within three or four seconds it was full. So there was a lot of waiting, but it was still quite a lot of fun for all three of us. The sea lions and penguins were utterly adorable as always. (sionnagh, I told them how you used to feed the penguins. They were all rockhoppers then, right? Now they’re all or mostly African penguins.)

Then we came back to plumtreeblossom’s place (where her wildflower garden is doing quite nicely, thank you) for corned beef, which we got to share with her housemate vanguardcdk who arrived just as we did. After dinner there was cake with ice cream, and then we sat on the balcony and chatted for a while.

Now I am home, and I think I’m going to go to bed early (maybe after reading a little more of Harry Potter). It makes sense that I’m sleepy, since I woke up out of a prosaic-but-inexplicably-creepy dream at 6:30 this morning (which would count as sleeping in for ka9sqb, I’m sure, but is unthinkably early for me) and couldn’t get back to sleep.

In other news, I have a doctor’s appointment (with another doctor in my PCP’s office since he said it had to be a morning appointment and he didn’t have any available until the very end of August) to gauge the results of my hormone treatment. I presume it will involve bloodwork and that’s why the time of day matters. (The short subjective version is that I’m doing much better since I started treatment, but don’t feel like I’m quite there yet, so I think my thyroid dosage needs some tweaking. I think my testosterone dosage is probably fine.)

So I had an awesome date with plumtreeblossom last night, with the help of nex0s, docorion, dan4th and dabunny, the awesome cast and crew of the theatreatfirst festival, gilana, surrealestate, Sears, and two lovely kitties!

First I met nex0s, docorion, and plumtreeblossom at Yoshi’s (a Japanese restaurant near plumtreeblossom’s house and theatreatfirst’s digs) for dinner and catching up while nex0s is in town. Then plumtreeblossom had to run off to get ready for her performance, and docorion suggested ice cream, so nex0s and I accompanied him to J.P. Licks in Davis Square. It was really great to get caught up with nex0s and hear some of her stories! Then nex0s and I went to the performance, where we had the unexpected delight of running into dan4th and dabunny.

The performance was a festival of short one-act plays by playwright Mark Harvey Levine, and it was fabulous! nex0s recently wrote a bit about the festival from an audience perspective, and plumtreeblossom’s post here talks about how well the festival went. It was really, really fun! I love the format — little ten-minute plays are sort of the short short stories of the stage, and I really enjoy them. Levine’s playlets are witty and entertaining and often very sweet and very funny, and the performances were all very well done.

After the plays I stayed to help a bit with strike (which mostly consisted of trying not to be in the way, since I didn’t know where anything went, but I did some vacuuming), and with such a large cast and crew (except for a little bit of doubling-up, the cast of each little play was different) the strike went pretty quickly. Then it was off to gilana’s house for a fabulous cast party. I was incapacitated by the heat for a little bit of it¹, but once I sat still for a while and cooled down I had a great time. plumtreeblossom and I spent quite a bit of the party hanging out with the lovely surrealestate (who lit up the stage as a firefly lightning bug in “In the Jar”, not to mention her development in “Cabfare for the Common Man”), and we ended up walking her home after the party. And of course, she invited us in, and, well, there was enticing green liquid. And we had some. And it was OH THE YUMMY! and we all sat out on her porch and had a lovely lovely time before plumtreeblossom and I called a cab to go to her place. (It would have been a perfectly delightful walk if it hadn’t been quite so late and we hadn’t been quite so engreenified.)

“They kiss. Lights out.”

This morning, having gotten to sleep at FOUR THIRTY IN THE MORNING, we slept until noon, with kitties keeping us company. Then we went to Sound Bites for excellent brunch, and went to Sears to get plumtreeblossom an air conditioner in advance of her mother’s visit next weekend. And then I drove back to Quincy, filled a prescription, checked on cathijosephine’s cat Chickenfinger, had dinner, and came home. I haven’t started catching up on LiveJournal.

Wow, that was a good, full, fun weekend!

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¹ It has been really hot and humid in the Boston area for a few days, and between thyroid hormone increasing my metabolism, longer hair after a many-year hiatus, and testosterone producing more muscle, my ability to handle the heat is diminished.

My last few days have been wonderful. First I should mention something I forgot to post about last time: I got in a nice long phone call with sionnagh on her birthday (July 8, or Double Independence Day as she calls it). Aside from Hamlet, the best dog in the world (see userpic), having a problem with a cut on his paw that won’t heal, it sounds like she’s doing really well. The fact that she had a birthday party the previous night, on the 7th, and it was still very much in evidence in the background of the phone call, speaks well. :-)

I already posted about last Tuesday at Walden Pond with surrealestate, which was delightful.

I had been planning on making a brief day-trip up to BiCamp on Sunday morning, so that I wouldn’t completely miss BiCamp this year, but surrealestate offered me the use of her tent Friday night, so instead I went up Friday night and came back Saturday afternoon. I am so glad I did that, and so grateful to surrealestate for her hospitality. I got to see all sorts of wonderful people from out of town, such as onemintjulep (and I got to meet his sister, the_elle_word), K. and her sweetie A., and a couple people from New Hampshire who don’t use LiveJournal. Also got some hugs in with lilbjorn and docorion, of course.

Swimming on Saturday at the swimming hole was excellent and delightful. (Crossing the rocky, slippery riverbed twice with no shoes I could get wet was somewhat less delightful. I’m very glad that my cellphone was in one of the two pockets (of six) that didn’t get utterly, utterly soaked when I fell. But swimming was totally worth it.)

And oh, my, the stars! If I believed in a Creator I would thank it profusely for the gift of small bladders forcing me to go outside in the middle of the night. Wow.

Then I came back on Saturday to a truly spectacular evening with my gorgeous girlfriend plumtreeblossom. You will forgive me if I don’t go into too much detail. Oh, and there was also good conversation!

Then we had a yummy and relaxing breakfast at The Broken Yolk (a little diner very near plumtreeblossom’s house, and the only place in the Boston area that I’ve found that has biscuits and gravy) before she went to Theatre@First for a work day or a rehearsal (I forget which). She’s a delight and I love her. (By the way, if I can let you in on a little secret, we’re dating.)

For the rest of the day, I got a little stuff done around the house — not nearly as much as I had planned, but given that I now have clean clothes to wear, I can’t complain too much.

Then yesterday (Monday) morning, I popped some corned beef and veggies in the crockpot, and last night cathijosephine came over for that and a beer. Had a great time with her, and I felt good about cooking, because I haven’t been doing nearly as much of that as I want to lately; it had been quite a while since I had the crockpot out. And it came out very good! I mentioned that I felt silly wasting all the broth but didn’t know what to do with it, and she had the awesome idea to cook pasta in it! So that’s what I did, and I just had some for lunch, and oh, my is it yumminess! That cathijosephine is smart! Walked her home (which was nice, because it was a gorgeous night and the first exercise I’d gotten all day), so I got to stop in and cuddle Chickenfinger a bit. Then I came home and puttered around on the computer for far too long and got to bed late, but I slept in a bit (I don’t have work today) and I feel really good today. The plan for the afternoon is scheduling logistics and house cleaning and organization before Diesel.