I’m sure this will come as a surprise to all of you, but I just can’t keep it a secret any longer. I love plumtreeblossom. Happy Valentine’s Day, love!

I also love my friends and family — the family I was spectacularly lucky to get by birth and the family I’ve chosen over the years — and my tribe and community. So Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too!

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.

plumtreeblossom and I are at a truck stop in Baltimore, on our way down to North Carolina to visit my sister bcat1 and brother-in-law spacechicken. We drove down to New Jersey last night after work (getting a late start for various reasons including frozen locks on my car), and crashed at a Motel 6 in New Jersey. Today we got an even later start due to me sleeping late and not noticing for a while that I’d gotten on the Turnpike going the wrong direction. But so far it’s been a lovely, relaxing drive.

Really looking forward to seeing bcat1 and spacechicken! And plumtreeblossom is a delightful travelling companion, as always. We might get to meet justanyolname and her husband while we’re down there, schedule permitting.

plumtreeblossom says to tell you all she says hi. :-)

Happy birthday to one of the most wonderful people in my life, my stepfather ka9sqb! You’re awesome and wonderful, and I hope you have an awesome and wonderful birthday full of love and joy.

I’ve seen this in zillions of people’s journals. ( The privilege meme. )
I agree with the criticisms lots of people have posted about this meme; lots of the items have to do with education more directly than with privilege (although of course they’re very closely related). And my own particular answers are often affected by geography more than social class (although again there’s some degree of correlation). Still, it was kind of interesting.

(By the way, silverlibre and ka9sqb, you should feel free to correct anything I’m misremembering or misrepresenting.)

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 just got a big box from my parents, silverlibre and ka9sqb. And since I have no particular plans to celebrate Christmas in a traditional fashion, and more importantly since I have absolutely no self-control, I opened it. Yay! They gave me all sorts of camping- and emergency-preparedness supplies, a soup cookbook (which looks like it has some really yummy recipes!), a big Calvin and Hobbes collection, some hot cocoa, and the very first fruitcake I have ever gotten. And they contributed to plumtreeblossom’s group birthday gift.

I don’t wanna sound like I only love them when they send me loot, ’cause I love them all the time, but I sure do love them.

Having a wonderful time in DC with plumtreeblossom — and bcat1 and spacechicken for much of the time! Yesterday we all went to the zoo, and then to Meskerem Ethiopian restaurant. Today we had brunch with bcat1 and spacechicken before they took off for Raleigh, and then plumtreeblossom and I wandered down the Mall and spent a couple nifty hours in the National Air and Space museum (which has the Apollo 11 CSM, the Friendship 7, and the Gemini capsule from the mission with the first US spacewalk, among lots of other impressive stuff). Then we headed for Dupont Circle, but decided to check out Chinatown on the way and ended up at a Burmese restaurant for dinner. (Neither of us had had Burmese food before. It’s yummy!) Then we went to Dupont Circle and had a lovely time wandering around. We ended up at Afterwords, a cafe connected to a bookstore, for very inexpensive and yummy dessert and coffee. The bookstore was neat, too.

Pictures will follow; we got some great ones at the zoo, and I think some of the ones from the Mall and the Air and Space museum came out well, although I haven’t had a chance to look at them. (I also owe y’all some pictures from Topsfield Fair.)

Happy birthday to my wonderful mother, silverlibre! If there’s anything you like about me, it’s probably her fault. :-)

(BTW, I have been remiss about posting birthday wishes lately -- sorry about that! It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, it just means I haven’t been good about checking my birthday calendar.)

• Awesome date with plumtreeblossom!
• Awesome wildflowers!
• Awesome party!
• Awesome yummy people at awesome party!
• Awesome opportunity to show off my new kilt at awesome party!
• Awesome phone call from my awesome parents silverlibre and ka9sqb just now!
• Awesome literary/social gathering I’m about to go to with plumtreeblossom!
• Awesome progress made on cleaning house!

So the weekend is made of awesome.

The only less-awesome thing is that for the time I haven’t been hanging around with awesome people this weekend I’ve been a bit down and grumpy. Not sure why — might have to do with being low on T (due to not wanting to inject the stuff I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to and needing to wait for a new prescription), or might have had to do with the state of the house (which nevertheless is improving). But that was pretty mild, and the weekend is definitely net awesome.