I just got back from a fabulous little trip to New York with plumtreeblossom to find large quantities of presents from silverlibre and ka9sqb in Illinois and bcat1 and spacechicken in North Carolina on my doorstep. And an awful lot of them are the edible kind!

An one very special thing was in the box from Illinois: a photo album of baby pictures of me, depicting a typical day in my life as a baby. Yes, there will be scans.

But not tonight. Tonight bed. I am happily exhausted and need to go curl up with a kitty cat.

plumtreeblossom and I have been having a wonderful weekend so far, with a fun PMRP work day painting some big pieces of Foley equipment, good food, a bad movie but with wonderful company, discovering a new neighbourhood near plumtreeblossom’s place, and a fabulous birthday party with an utterly spectacular birthday cake¹, a lovely and charming birthday boy and girl with very good taste in friends, lots of people we knew, lots of new people to meet, and excellent conversation. And now we’re about to run out for a pleasant breakfast. It’s a good weekend, and even the rain is kind of cozy-seeming.

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¹ Flourless death-by-chocolate, topped with a layer of strawberries, a layer of tiramisù, and a layer of hard chocolate. I want to learn to make that. And then I want to become independently wealthy so I can hire people to make it for me and to cart me around in my wheelbarrow. It might have to be a double-wide.

(1) I forgot to mention in my post about the weekend that Saturday morning plumtreeblossom and I got together with my old college friend beeiger her son projectmothra, and her girlfriend lediva for early brunch at Johnny D’s, and we had a delightful time.

(2) I’ve switched my phone service over to a new carrier, and I can send and receive voice calls and send text messages, but so far I haven’t been able to receive text messages. Perhaps the SMS routing system is independent from the voice-call routing system and that part of the switch hasn’t happened yet, but in any case, for now, don’t assume I can get your text messages. My phone number hasn’t changed.

(3) I have some health news (on balance good, but leaving me pretty dissatisfied with the state of my health care) which I will eventually post about. Anyway, the tingling, itching, and occasional pain in my hands and feet is gone now. :-)

(4) A lovely coda to my extended weekend was having cathijosephine and m_c_t ask if I wanted to meet them for a trip to the beach so they could fly their kites. I joined them, had a great time watching them fly kites and hanging out, and was introduced to a wonderful beach just a short walk from the T, which I look forward to taking plumtreeblossom to soon. (We had a kind of stressful experience towards the end of the evening, after it had gotten dark, when after a long walk across he beach m_c_t discovered he didn’t have his phone. The three of us spread out and retraced the path he and I had been walking, constantly calling the phone so it would be ringing, and we did find it. That was a huge relief!)

(5) And then on the way home I had an extra-thick double-malted frappe for dinner (because the places that served real food had just closed, but I’m not complaining!).

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!

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. :-)

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.

[So I composed this last night and was just about to post it, and a slip of the thumb on the trackpad wiped most of it out. Retyping and posting now, but let’s pretend I posted this last night.]

First the good:

Had a fabulous day with plumtreeblossom, surrealestate', and some other folks. Met plumtreeblossom at The Burren for a yummy brunch, then browsed in a housewares store before meeting surrealestate and some other Firsties back at The Burren for a performance of All in the Timing, a collection of short plays that Theatre@First had done a few years ago. It was a lot of fun. When Theatre@First had done it, each one-act play had had a different cast, but this group did it with mostly the same actors on all six plays — and some of them were real feats of memorization. It was a lot of fun and a great performance.

Afterwards, plumtreeblossom and I went back to surrealestate’s for a game of Scrabble and a couple of games of Chez Geek, and had a great time. On our way back to plumtreeblossom’s she and I got really yummy Thai food at Tip Top Thai near surrealestate’s. And it’s so nice out that she and I just [Sunday night] had our regular nightcap and wonderful meandering conversation (and her goodnight cigarette) out on her balcony.

A very good day.

Now the bad:

On Friday night, I coughed. Just once, and not a very big cough. Barely clearing my throat. But it hurt my back really badly, and it still hurts (although it’s somewhat better now).

On Saturday evening, as I was finally getting around to the morning shower I hadn’t managed all day because my back hurt too much to stand for that long I reached for the bathroom doorknob. And felt a sharp pain in my wrist, along with a weird shifting sensation. The sharp pain went away pretty quickly, and I thought I was fine until I open the shower curtain and it was back again. And I still have it, whenever I do the wrong thing. Putting on my coat or buttoning or unbuttoning buttons is always the wrong thing. Taking my cell phone out of my pocket or steadying myself on a wall (did I mention that my back is still in a lot of pain?) is sometimes the wrong thing. Conveniently, typing is never the wrong thing, and I had no problem holding my cards in that hand at surrealestate’s.

And as we were getting ready to leave surrealestate’s last night, I bent over to tie my shoe, and hurt my back in a completely different place. Fortunately that only lasted about 20min and seems to have gone away completely by now, but still!

This is Not Okay. I’m going to take this body back for a refund.

(I have a vague notion that this joint stuff might be related to side effects from a new drug my doctor put me on — I’ve got some other, less worrisome side effects that I’m pretty sure are from it — and I’ll be talking to him as soon as possible.)

Too sleepy to do the weekend justice, but:

• Yummy Korean buffet with plumtreeblossom and my close friend and ex pucepea Friday night. pucepea is fabulous and I’m delighted to be getting back in touch with her, and plumtreeblossom (who is also fabulous) had a great time, too.
• Lots of sleep Saturday morning. I think I got up at something like 2pm. I needed it.
• Wonderful, wonderful party Saturday night with plumtreeblossom. Lots of smooches with lots of eminently smoochable people.
• Sunday, plumtreeblossom tried a culinary experiment based on a dream she had had: butterscotch macaroni and cheese. It worked! It was yummy! More desserty than dinnerish, as you would expect, but way yummy. I had thirds.

Tonight, I think I may go to sleep early. (For me, that normally means by 2:00am, but I think I may manage to get to bed before that, astonishingly enough.)

So last night I got together with plumtreeblossom and surrealestate at House of Tibet in Teele Square and had a yummy meal. We started with veggie momos, which were very good and mostly potatoey, and a mixed appetizer platter. As my entrée I had a yak dish, which I think was the first time I had ever had yak. It was very good! The gravy it was in was also yummy, but I’d like to try it without sauce sometime so I get a clearer sense of the flavour of the meat. plumtreeblossom got a noodle dish with pea pods, which I sampled a fair amount of; the noodles were especially good. And the conversation was lots of fun.

This morning, plumtreeblossom and I had a yummy breakfast at The Burren, one of our favourite places for breakfast in Davis. It was crowded this morning — for a long time when we’d go we’d usually be the only people there, or one of two occupied tables. Today we got seats right away, but the place was almost full. They certainly deserve the business; their food is great. The pancakes (which plumtreeblossom usually has) are especially good.