Yesterday in list form:
+: cathijosephine locked herself out of the house. This is a plus because she came over to get the spare key I have, woke me up early, and took me out to IHOP for breakfast to thank me, which means I got to see her unexpectedly, I got a free eggs-and-bacon-and-pancakes brunch, and I got to work on time.
+: Met devoken for dinner. Was great to catch up with her. I got to tell her all about plumtreeblossom’s and my New York trip.
+: In conjunction with the preceding, I discovered how easy it is to walk from work to Coolidge Corner. This will be useful.
±: Because I got in to work at an unexpectedly reasonable time, and devoken works till 9, I had a very long day at work. That would have made me happy if I’d been more focussed for it.
-: I have a cold. Over the course of yesterday it became clear that it's a real cold rather than just allergies or dry air. This morning it included a bad sore throat, but that got better when I was up and around. Oh, well. Maybe I caught it on the bus.

On Saturday, plumtreeblossom and I went to the American Museum of Natural History, one of my favourite places. sexykneesocks, who happened to be in town as well, met us there, and it was great catching up with her. I took lots of photos, which I will try to get posted at some point.

plumtreeblossom and I tried to go next door to the Rose Space Center, but we got there close enough to closing that we couldn't see a show, so we went back to the AMNH for another half hour or so.

After that, we met nex0s and midnightstation for dinner nearby, and had a fabulous time. I'd seen nex0s in Boston a few months ago, but I hadn't seen midnightstation in far too long.

On Sunday, we got together at Fred's, a dog-themed restaurant I've posted about before, for brunch with beetiger, eisa, and fairyleathrdady, who surprised us by paying for brunch. Lovely seeing all of them, and I'm so glad beetiger drove in to meet us.

Then we made our way back to Chinatown to take the Fung Wah back to Boston and had a lovely snuggly trip back with lots of nice conversation.

Y'all should also go read plumtreeblossom's post about the weekend here, since I'm posting this in a hurry and I'm certainly missing stuff.

Congratulations to (non-LJ-endowed) Dreaming, who got his nursing degree today! He sure has worked hard for it.

(And thanks to surrealestate for calling my attention to this delightful occasion.)

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.

Well, I had a bad cold towards the end of last week, and I took Friday off from work (and slept for most of it, which was glorious). But I was better by Saturday (sleeping late Saturday as well), and Saturday night I went to see plumtreeblossom and many other wonderful people at the closing night of Much Ado About Nothing at Theatre@First. The performance was great (as opening night had been), and a lovely bonus was bumping into minerva42 and getting to catch up a bit. (See my earlier post for more about the performance.)

Afterwards, I helped strike, which was lots of fun but took longer than I had expected (given the extremely minimal set) because Theatre@First needed to clear everything out of the prop closet so the church could do some remodelling. I enjoy doing stuff like that where I can just look around and find some mindless task that somebody else will have to do if I don’t do it. I think I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly as much if I were one of the people trying to keep track of all the tasks, mindless and difficult, and making sure they all get done efficiently in the proper order by the proper people.

And after strike, I joined plumtreeblossom at the wonderful cast party at heliopsis’ house. It was a great party with yummy food and munchies and delightful people. Did I mention it was at heliopsis’ house? It was at heliopsis’ house. This is of note because ① heliopsis is a total sweetheart and ② a gracious and welcoming host who ③ throws a kickass party and his house is gorgeous and just perfectly laid out for that sort of party. (I understand that surrealestate sold it to him. Way to go, surrealestate! You need to sell houses to more people whose parties I go to!) He’s also ④ a spectacular cook, by the way.

At some point during the party, heliopsis put on the Kenneth Branagh version of Much Ado (which I had watched with plumtreeblossom a few weeks ago) and we all sat around and watched and compared performances. We had to stay through plumtreeblossom’s lines, of course, but she and I were pretty tired by this point, and by the time we said our goodbyes and made our way to her place (just a few blocks away) and got ready for bed it was something like 3:00am. Whee!

We slept late (for plumtreeblossom, not really for me), and Sunday morning we hustled out of the house and got on the road to try to find the Gideon Freudmann concert in Vermont. Now, I had spaced on the fact that we were doing that until Saturday afternoon (I blame several days of a cold), and had scrambled to find and print out directions when I was leaving for the show Saturday night, and, long story short, I was not clear on the directions, I did not have my GPS with me, and I knew we were cutting it close on the timing even if everything went perfectly. Only everything didn’t go perfectly; the Google Maps directions I had printed out had some turns (or forks) onto streets which did not have street signs, and in at least one case probably looked more like a long driveway than a street (unless I really wasn’t in even approximately the right place to start with). So anyway, there was much driving back and forth trying to figure out where our turn was, and after about 40min of this I decided even if we got back on track the concert would be mostly over by the time we got there, so we turned around and looked for food.

We drove around for a while in White River Junction looking in vain for something that was both more upscale than a slice of pizza and open at 7pm on a Sunday, but plumtreeblossom found a Chinese buffet just as we were getting back on the highway, and we had a very satisfying meal there.

Only after the meal I got on the wrong highway. And I didn’t notice I was on 91 instead of [EDIT: 89] until we were almost to Northampton, which added at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half to our return trip. plumtreeblossom was very sweet about it, but remember that we’d been up till 3:00am the previous night — she was very tired and wanted to be home in bed. I felt bad about that. But most of the drive was delightful and sunny and I got to spend almost the entire day with my hand on her knee, so as far as I am concerned it was a win.

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!

(Sorry no Rabbit Hole Day post this year; I don’t have enough brain cells to be creative right now. You get the following by virtue of the fact that most of it was written yesterday on the T.)

So last long weekend was Arisia, and I haven’t stopped having fun since. On Tuesday, I ended up at dinner at the Cambridge location of Addis Red Sea with cathijosephine, ragingamazon, and a bunch of other people in what was sort of an impromptu farewell dinner for ragingamazon. I had never tried their new location, and I hadn’t had Ethiopian food since Meskerem in DC with plumtreeblossom, bcat1, and spacechicken. It was the yum, and the company was lots of fun.

On Wednesday, plumtreeblossom and I went to a gathering at The Burren for members of the davis_square community. The bar gave us free food, and they certainly recouped their investment; there were about 30 or 35 of us there. There were lots of Theatre@First people there, among them the wonderful surrealestate (f/k/a pheromone) and joyeous, but there were also a lot of people we hadn’t met in person, and a lot of people we (especially I) didn’t know at all. It was a great time.

( A few more days, cut for length. )

As I was telling jadia over dinner yesterday, as a child I was an introvert, more or less out of necessity since I was sick a lot (and therefore out of school a lot, and often unable to run and play with other kids). Clearly I am no longer an introvert, but it’s only been in the past few years that my mental image of myself has caught up to reality. I used to think, “Hah, hah! I’ve got everybody fooled; they think I’m an extrovert, just because I get energized by spending lots and lots of time with other people!” and it was only fairly recently that I realized that everybody who thought I was an extrovert was actually right. (I am, though, an extrovert who needs a lot of quiet alone time.) Anyway, if I had lingering doubts, this past week should lay them to rest.

I’m too sleepy to write about it myself, so I’ll just point you to this entry in which plumtreeblossom writes all about our very social holiday.

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.