Had a great last few days in Hawai‘i, including a trip to the water park with sionnagh, our friend K, and her daughter D., and a games night at which I got to meet a bunch of sionnagh’s friends and play Web of Power and Frank’s Zoo.

Oh, and the Crockpot Fairy has visited sionnagh. :-)

I have a very tight connection in LAX, which I made it in time for despite my flight from HNL being delayed. Only now my flight from LAX to ORD is delayed, so my connection in Chicago is now iffy. Wish me luck.

Yours very sleepily,
beowabbit

Slept really late yesterday, and was conscious today. (Er, by “today” I mean “Sunday”.)

Got to go to King Richard’s Faire today with the wonderful eisa, who’s up from New York City for the weekend. We got to see [person who’s LJ name I don’t know, if he has one], who works there. They had tigers, leopards, and a stunningly huge liger, a falconry exhibition, an albino Burmese python, and oh, I think there were also some people walking around in funny clothes. It was quite fun. Afterwards we watched Grave of the Fireflies, an amazingly well done and amazingly depressing animated Japanese film about a young brother and sister orphaned towards the end of the war. It also presented a rather, um, simple picture of the war, but I wasn’t too surprised at that. Very good movie, but I’m glad I wasn’t alone when I saw it. Oh, and we got to play a couple games of Chez Geek, which neither of us had played in years. And on my way home from dropping her off to meet jadasc, I got to spend a little time with cathijosephine’s cat Chickenfinger.

Still wish I could have made it to BiCamp, but today still made for a good weekend. Now I must sleep. Actually, a long time ago I must sleep, but now I’m going to.

PS — Eventually I will post photos of the cats and raptors.

So yesterday afternoon was about cleaning and organizing and even doing a smidge more unpacking. In the evening I got to see the lovely plumtreeblossom, so it was a delightful birthday. :-)

This morning I had breakfast at IHOP with cathijosephine and faerieschylde, who was visiting cathijosephine. Was great to see them, although I think between the three of us we’d had enough sleep for one and a half people. :-)

This afternoon I had people over for games. This was only the second time since I moved here that I had made the house semi-presentable for company (and I think it was more presentable than the first time, actually). This was also the first time I actually got around to having Artoo vacuum since I got him many months ago.

It was a great time. treacle_well won the first game of Cities and Knights, and surrealestate won the second game, although since she had to leave just before the game ended, dabunny got to deliver the coup de grace on her behalf. Then zzbottom introduced us to a very nifty game called Ticket to Ride: Europe, which is a territory-control game that reminds me a bit of Through the Desert, although much less sedate.

Howdy! I plan (slightly tentatively) on having a games afternoon on Sunday, August 27. It’ll be the day after my birthday, and it will have been a long time since I’ve played Cities and Knights, or Carcassonne, or Puerto Rico, and I’d love for y’all to come and help me fix that. (I’m going to be mostly interested in playing German-style board games, but if y’all want to bring card games, other kinds of board games, retro video games, party games, or whatever, you’re welcome to. And I plan on starting this at 2:00pm and going till 9:00 or so, so we should have time for several games.)

This will be at my house in Quincy. RSVPs (via comment here or by email) are highly recommended so that (1) I can be sure that my relatively small house will accommodate everyone (although if the weather is nice, we can use the deck for those games that are less likely to blow away) and so that (2) I can get you directions.

PS — Also, Remember, Remember the 25th of August.

Busy, busy week at work, and productively so. My boss is about to have a baby (well, his wife is), and that’s happening a bit sooner than expected, so this week was all about him trying to brain dump to us as fast as possible before disappearing for six weeks. There was also a long power outage that we got a few days notice of. Anyway, lots of stuff that wasn’t routine, which made me happy.

Tuesday I got together with chienne_folle for yummy, yummy diner food in Wakefield, followed by Pirates of the Caribbean II, which was nice fluffy fun. We did lots of catching up, too. Also, my conversation with chienne_folle pretty much convinced me that yes, I do have sleep apnea, despite what my doctor said when I raised the possibility with her a couple years ago. This is exciting, because it means that there may actually be something to be done about my erratic memory and low energy level. I need to contact her again and see if I can get a referral for a sleep study. (And then talk to an otolaryngologist, because while I suspect a CPAP machine will help, I also want to look into things I can do while travelling or camping or sleeping with people who don’t want a machine running by their heads.)

Wednesday, um, I think something probably happened, but I don’t remember what.

Thursday I got together spur-of-the-moment with elusiveat for Thai food and hanging around in Harvard Square, which was delightful.

Friday I went back to chienne_folle’s for a games night that her lovely husband was having, and met some nifty people and watched a fun game of Carcassonne.

Today I went to bbbsg and chillguru’s place and had a fabulous time.

Here’s about where you all say “Low energy level? What is he talking about?” Well, I left very early, because I’m wiped out. I considered not going in the first place, actually, because I was so tired. But yes, I realize my “low energy level” is some people’s “manic frenzy”.

Watching: As mentioned above, Pirates of the Caribbean II with the marvellous chienne_folle. The Italian Job (the 1969 original) on the subway yesterday, which I loved. Started Cat People (the 1982 remake) on the train today. I saw it when it was first released (and yes, all you young ’uns with your cell phones and your electric iceboxes and your motor cars, I was already old enough to drool over Natassja Kinski then :-) but I found it for sale cheap and wanted to watch it again. It has very stylish and memorable opening credits. :-) I’m quite fond of being able to put my DVDs on a video jukebox and watch them on the train.

First, the morning from hell. For background, I got a new prescription for contacts a few months ago, which turned out to be incorrect, although the sample lenses the eye doctor had given me to try out were correct. So I had an eye appointment scheduled for today to get the prescription fixed.

I’m too tired to do a fully-fleshed-out write-up, so I’ll just tell you about my morning by copying and pasting from mail to cathijosephine. ( Here’s what I wrote. )

So, the three good things: Thanks in large measure to mud_puppy, I went to a fundraiser/rally for Deval Patrick at the Hynes Convention Center on Thursday. Introducing him was Barack Obama, who of course was a really good speaker, but who did a very good job of not stealing Patrick’s thunder. I’d heard Obama’s DNC speech and a couple other sound bites, so I knew what to expect from him, and I got it. But I’d never heard Patrick speak; at most, I’d read short quotes. And wow, he is a kick-ass speaker! Inspiring, entertaining, honest-sounding, impressive. He gives the sound bites, but he also connects them and uses them responsibly. He doesn’t just assert or imply something, he explains why it happens. His speech made me simultaneously really confident in him as a politician and really confident in him as an officeholder, and you don’t get that combination very often. (Even people who are in fact going to be good at both often do only one or the other in their speeches.) So that was amazing. And it was nice to see mud_puppy and a couple co-workers of hers, docorion, and lilbjorn and M. there.

After that, I met cathijosephine at Sarsfield’s, our local Irish pub, for a pint and a half each, which made up in caloric value for not having had dinner. :-) We had a really good time. While I’d seen her a few times recently, this was the first time we’d had a chance to just chat one-on-one since before I went to Hawai‘i, and it felt really good.

And tonight I went over to chienne_folle’s for a night of text-adventure games with her and her husband and a bunch of their friends, which was really, really fun. Makes me want to put some text adventures on my Treo to play on the subway; evidently there’s a lot out there. We played a game called Ad Verbum (if I’m remembering correctly), which was interesting in that it was largely about verbal puzzles. For instance, there’s a room in which all the descriptions use only words that start with S, and you can only use words that start with S in your commands. Atypical, I guess, but lots of fun. I left before they started the second one, because I was starting to get too tired for that kind of brainage, but I had a great time, and seeing queenofhalves there was an unexpected pleasure.

So, all in all, life is good! And soon I will have new contact lenses that don’t give me headaches and with which I can actually read computer screens!

beowabbit sleep now.

As usual when I haven’t posted in a while, it’s because I’ve been having too much fun. I’ve had a lot happen lately that I’ve wanted to post about, but I can’t quite remember everything and certainly can’t remember all the eloquent, moving, timeless prose I composed in my head. So a whirlwind tour through the things that actually made it into my calendar will have to do.

( Cut for length )

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m going to Honolulu to visit sionnagh next month. Exciting! Yay, sionnagh and Hamlet! Yay, swimming in the ocean! Yay, spam musubi and loco moco! Broke da mouth!

Oh, and the only reason I’m using this new userpic is that I like it so much. It’s a detail from the back of the 1896 issue of the (silver-backed) US $5 bill. The engraving is entitled Electricity Presenting Light to the World, and you can read more about it and lots of other equally gorgeous and lyrical currency designs at http://www.flyingmoose.org/truthfic/1896.htm. The figure reaching in front of Electricity with the trumpet is Fame, proclaiming Electricity’s glory. Cropped out of the userpic are Jupiter with a lightning bolt to power the lamp and Peace holding a dove, but you can also see a bald eagle next to Electricity. Why on earth anybody ever thought to change the design of the $5 bill after such a pinnacle is entirely beyond me, but I suppose all is corruption and decay.

Oh, and I bought flowers for the yard! Those of you who know me will ① realize what a momentous occasion this is, and ② feel sorry for the plants. Wish them luck.

Thanks to zzbottom for a couple of fab Cities and Knights games last night, and to missdimple for opening her house to us.

This morning I read the Reuters headline “Straw urges Iraq to build unfed government”, and my first thought was “They’re going to want to spend some wheat real quick.”

Hi! If I can get enough people together, I’d like to play Cities and Knights of Catan at my house (location negotiable) this Sunday at 6:00pm. Anybody interested and free? I would anticipate there being a take-out order sometime early on. I realize most people have long-weekend plans already, but I thought it was worth a shot and I haven’t played C&K in a long time. Please comment here or email me if you’re interested and you can make it.

In other news, Tuesday was a disappointing day at work, Tuesday night was lovely (as Tuesday nights always are), Wednesday was a great day at work in which we discovered that the tragedy of Tuesday was illusory and all was right and birds were singing sweetly in the warm sunlight, and tonight I'm about to leave work to go dancing, so all is right with the Universe.

What a fun, busy weekend!

Friday: Hanging out at the Diesel, followed by watching Finding Neverland with bbbsg, chillguru, cathijosephine, and dustriderma. Loved the movie, and the company.

Saturday: Three games of Cities and Knights with magid, queue, and surrealestate (with G. who no longer has an LJ hanging out with us). It was marvellous. If I’m remembering correctly, surrealestate won all three games; I know she won two of them, and I think I’d have remembered if she didn’t win all three of them, since it’s such a rare event.

Sunday: Yummy brunch, involving enjoying the company of a bunch of people I knew and making the acquaintance of a bunch of nifty people I didn’t know, followed by going over to zzbottom’s to welcome him home from auctioneering school and get one of his shiny new business cards.