As always, docorion is wise in this post on our government’s ongoing efforts to protect us from terrorism by keeping us terrified itself. If you haven’t already, you should read it.

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.

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.

So plumtreeblossom and I had a lovely morning, with inter alia brunch at a little hole-in-the-wall diner near my house. It was pleasant and sunny when we went in. When we came out it was grey and windy and cold and we thought a storm might be coming in. But by the time I dropped her off in Davis, it was sunny and nice again.

Sadly I didn’t get to see any of Somerville Open Studios, but darxus (aided and abetted by cathijosephine met me at Marathon Sports to buy shoes. See, I have this problem that I buy cheap shoes, and more than half the time they’re crummy and hurt and fall apart right away, so I’m not willing to spend good money on shoes, since it’s not a good investment because they probably won’t work out. The more clever among you may detect a certain amount of circularity to this logic. Anyway, inspired by darxus’ experience getting fitted for shoes there, I met them and got myself a pair of significantly less cheap shoes.

They gave me 9½ wide shoes, which is crazy, because I take 9½ regular. These new shoes feel weird. For example, my little toes don’t hurt. How can you tell you have your shoes on properly if your toes don’t hurt? But I’ll give them another couple days...

Then we went to Cambridge Common for lunch. Since I had had brunch fairly recently, I just had an appetizer — yummy, yummy sweet-potato fries! I have to go back there.

Then cathijosephine and I wandered around in quest of a fax machine, getting distracted by a bookstore along the way, and finally succeeding at a Staples. Then we went back to darxus’ place for a little bit. While I was there, I got a call from docorion, returning my call earlier when we were trying to figure out where we could send a fax from. So I asked him if he had dinner plans, and since he didn’t, I met him in Davis and we went to Redbones for barbecue and had a great time hanging out and chatting.

The one downside to the day is my back. I hurt it recently, probably yesterday morning when I was moving some boxes of papers into the crawlspace above the garage. (This involved carrying heavy bulky boxes up a ladder, so I was holding them in odd ways to keep my center of balance over the ladder.) It was distinctly noticeable yesterday, but wasn’t too bad. (It was still an excellent excuse to get a massage from plumtreeblossom, though!) Today it’s gotten worse over the course of the day. In particular, it really doesn’t like getting into and out of the car, which I’ve been doing a lot of. I look forward to a good night’s sleep and hopefully it will be better tomorrow morning.

In other news, in less than a week, plumtreeblossom and I will be in Las Vegas, meeting sionnagh and her father for a couple of days! That will be delightful; I’m looking forward to them meeting each other.

Now it’s time to take my painkiller and go to sleep. G’night, all!

+: I got to bed unusually early last night, and got an unusually large amount of sleep.
-: Despite that, when my alarm went off I was incredibly tired, and hit snooze umpty-zillion times, and was late using my light box for the first time since I started using it.
(-: And I actually think the light box is more trouble than it’s worth, although I should probably give it a couple more weeks.)
+: Despite getting a late and slow start, I felt like I had a reasonably productive day at work.
++: And afterwards I got to hang out with plumtreeblossom and docorion and mud_puppy at Namaskar and have yummy Indian food.
-: My yummy Indian food was somewhat less yummy than it might have been, because I forgot to ask for no cilantro and no tomatoes.
+: plumtreeblossom’s yummy Indian food was highly yummy, as was the bread.
+: I got to hear some more of docorion’s fun stories.
+: plumtreeblossom gave me an awesome May Day present, an interactive book (not quite a pop-up book, but along those lines, with flaps to open and things to unfold) about pirates! It even has a compass and some jewels embedded in the front cover! Between the compass and the maps I’m sure to find some booty!
+: I got to unburden myself to plumtreeblossom a bit about my medical concerns (well, vent, really; she’s heard it all before).
++: And tomorrow I have an ENT appointment which I am really hopeful about.
+: And after dinner we hung out and chatted over tea at Diesel.
+: I drank a lot of tea at Diesel. And a lot of water and lassi at Namaskar. This is called “foreshadowing”.
-: This fire sure delayed my ride home. Instead of a train straight through from Davis to Quincy Center, it was a Red Line train from Davis to Kendall (where I could faintly smell smoke on the air), a shuttle bus from Kendall to Lechmere, the Green Line from Lechmere to Park Street, and the Red Line from Park Street to Quincy Center.
-: Boy howdy did I have to pee by the time I finally got home.
-: And I’m too tired to deal with the fridge, which I seem to have been attempting to create life from primordial ooze in.
-: And I think I’m too tired to do laundry.
++: But I’m about to go to sleep!
+++: And by this time tomorrow I might know more about my breathing problems and might even have a plan for what to do about them!

So first of all, I’m at work today, and in my groggy endorphin haze this morning I neglected to bring any of my Precious American Consumer Electronics, so if you need to get in touch with me during the day send me email or comment here.

Second of all, last night docorion organdized an expotition to Finland Steam Baths, right in Quincy, and it was luxurious and marvellous! It ended up being docorion, me, plumtreeblossom, underwatercolor, and minerva42, and we had a great and relaxing time. For that many people, it was only $20/person/hr., quite a deal! I predict many more trips there in my future.

(After that we had yummy Japanese food at Kagawa.)

Whoops, I forgot a bullet point:

• Had a delightful and unexpected brunch with docorion.

He’d come over to do a bit of maintenance on his bike (which is in my garage for the winter), and we had a nice chat and went to the IHOP. I knew I’d miss him when he moved out, and it’s nice that I still bump into him here once in a while. (And I was so happy that he and mud_puppy and mattlistener were able to join us for Thanksgiving!)

Forgot to mention the lovely and yummy dinner last night with docorion and plumtreeblossom at Hong Kong Eatery in Quincy (after docorion’s shift at the hospital), and the delightfully relaxed morning with plumtreeblossom. It’s nice to get up early enough that you don’t have to hurry through the morning and you can make coffee and rolls (chienne_folle, I offered fruit, too! Really I did! :-) and have a nice shower. And I started some corned beef brisket in the crockpot for tonight (and probably all of next week, too — it completely filled the crockpot) and we rode in together. It was our first night together at my place in Quincy on a “school night”, and it was a success. Was delightful to get to catch up with docorion last night, too!

I had a great time with plumtreeblossom over the weekend. The bit I can talk about here involved a great bi brunch at Doyle’s in JP, one of my favourite brunch places. Since we got there very early, I took her to see an old house I used to live in (Treehouse, on Biltmore St., for those of you who have been there). The bit I can’t talk about here was sufficiently vigorous as to result in me getting accidentally injured and not noticing until later. Go us!

We made a wonderful discovery on Saturday night: Even with the CPAP mask on me, it still works fine for me to be on the outside when we spoon. Yay! That’s one of my favourite sleeping positions, and I’d been afraid I’d have to give it up.

Last night I had dinner at cathijosephine’s and got to see her friend C. from college, who was in town visiting for the weekend. A bit later on, docorion stopped by there after picking some stuff up from my house (formerly his house, and still home to many of his boxes). So it was an awesome evening.

Then today I again went over to cathijosephine’s for dinner, this time with darxus. She made marinated turkey tenderloin and potatoes in the crock pot, and some rice to go along with it, and it came out really, really well. She put the tenderloin and potatoes in with some soy sauce, apple juice, and garlic, and it came out really really well. (cathijosephine, how long did you cook it for, and on high or low?) It was sort of a communal dinner, since many of the ingredients had come from my kitchen. And afterwards, cathijosephine baked muffins! And they were bran muffins, so they were healthy! Honest!

I’m still limping (although my hip is doing a lot better than it was Saturday night), but I have to say, gin and tonic is a very tasty anaesthetic.

So, life with the CPAP machine continues to go well. I have some irritation where the mask presses against my nose, and I tend to have very dry skin in the morning where the mask (and its little gel spacer) press against my face, but those are trivial problems. I did wake up with an utterly bone-dry nose two nights in a row, despite having the humidification on high, which was uncomfortable and peculiar, but I’m relieved that didn’t happen again last night. Maybe it was some sort of weird interaction between the CPAP machine and the minor cold I had.

I am feeling much, much better. People (where ‘people’ are specifically cathijosephine and docorion at dinner last night) are noticing that I’m more energetic and that I have a better short-term memory, and I continue to feel much more alert and rested. I feel great. And all the little things I have to do are starting to feel like things to check off on a to-do list, rather than like Huge Insurmountable Obstacles I don’t have the energy to face.

We will permit this to continue; it meets with Our approval.

In other news, I had a very lovely dinner with plumtreeblossom, docorion, darxus, and cathijosephine at Kagawa (a sushi place in Quincy Center) last night, followed by yummy dessert with plumtreeblossom, and I drove her down to dietrich and imlad’s wedding on the Cape this morning and dropped her off. (I got to briefly see a bunch of people, including minerva42 and underwatercolor, and may I say that quem98’s corset and surrealestate’s towel both looked lovely!)

By the way, last night was plumtreeblossom’s first night sleeping with me with the CPAP machine on me, and it was fine; the machine didn’t seem to bug her at all. Yay!