Howdy! The smaller room in my house (in Quincy, a 15min walk from the Quincy Center T station and walking distance from the shops and restaurants on Hancock and Washington Streets) is available starting immediately. Here’s the text of the ad I just posted to Craigslist:

( Craigslist ad )

Feel free to disseminate far and wide, either by pointing people at this post or by pointing them at the Craigslist post (although that will expire in a few days).

+  Yay! My brick walkway is mowed! Woo-hoo! I totally rule!
−  Wait, my brick walkway needed to be mowed?

Sorry for my extreme radio-silence lately. I’ve been mostly sort of keeping up with other people’s LiveJournal posts (albeit with more skimming than usual), but I haven’t had time or brainpower to post or do much commenting. Anyway, since I’m sure you all are wondering whether I’m still alive, here’s some of what I’ve been up to lately:

Home repairs: Just after cathijosephine moved out, the bath surround (the panels on the wall around the bathtub) fell off. Well, large bits of it did, anyway. It had never been all that convinced it wanted to be attached to the wall, and it gave up. I had been thinking for a very long time (since before I moved in, come to think of it) of pulling it off and repairing whatever damage it had been put up to cover, but had never gotten around to it, in part because it involves not being able to use the shower for extended periods of time due to wating for various bits to dry. Anyway, since I didn’t have a housemate for a bit (anybody want to move in? Quincy’s got lots of history and lots of yummy restaurants! Won’t be available for a bit yet, though.) I decided I’d go ahead and try that. As is the way with these things, it quickly became a much larger project than I expected it to. It was just three days ago (after starting the project about a month ago, although of course I’ve been working on it in spurts) that I finally had a day where I left the bathroom looking better than when I started.

This has all taken a lot longer because of not having a working car any more, so when I discover I don’t have the right tool or I didn’t get enough tile adhesive, I need to either carry stuff on the T (and on the walk home from the T) or rent a Zipcar. (I have to say, I’m really enjoying using Zipcar. But still, it means having to plan stuff in advance.)

Theater: As I did last year, I’m rehearsal-assisting for plumtreeblossom’s show in the summer one-act festival at Theatre@First. Unlike last year, I’m also going to be on the run crew, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. Means I can’t sit in the audience for the actual performances, but it means I get to be on stage, albeit with the lights dimmed. Also unlike last year, the show plumtreeblossom is directing is one she wrote herself! My darling is having her début as a playwright! I’ve read a bunch of short stories she got published before I met her and really enjoyed them, but this is the first substantial writing she’s done since I’ve known her, and I’m thrilled to see her getting back into it. It is a really funny show being put on by very talented actors and it’s going to be a blast! Many of the other one-acts are also really funny too, including the one being directed by surrealestate (who is directing for the first time, if I’m not misremembering). I am really really looking forward to this and you should all come see it.

plumtreeblossom: Things continue to be delightful in my relationship with plumtreeblossom! We have lots of wonderful dates and delightful times. Tomorrow we are going to see Up for the third time. :-) Her cat Rowley who had been frighteningly skinny for a while has been putting on weight, which is really encouraging. We’d already been mentally preparing to lose him. Not sure if the subcutaneous fluids the vet has her giving him are what made the difference or not, but he’s doing a lot better.

Work: Work is busy, but rewarding, and I feel like I’m accomplishing stuff (although projects in IT, as in homeownership, tend to take several times as long as you think they should).

cathijosephine: I’m delighted that I’m still seeing lots of cathijosephine despire her having moved out. We’ve been trying to have dinner together once a week (often with darxus and m_c_t if he’s in town, and sometimes with xmelancholia). Chickenfinger (her cat) has adapted really well to moving back to her condo; we were both worried she’d be upset about moving back to a much smaller space, but she had no trouble adjusting at all.

(Other than seeing a lot of plumtreeblossom and her housemate, cathijosephine and her partners, and the Firsties, I’m feeling a bit undersocialized and missing my friends. Have been popping my head in at some lovely parties though, at one of which I got to catch a glimpse of the delightful weegoddess during a visit this side of the pond.)

I feel like there’s been other important stuff over the past few weeks, but I’ve run out of brain so I’m going to stop for now.

(Partly for my own reference, so I don’t have to Google image search again:)

So the first flowers to come up and blossom in my yard this year are perennial lupine, with lovely conical clusters of purple flowers. This is the first year they’ve come up, but they must be from the mix I planted two years ago.

I also have some coreopsis getting tall, although that hasn’t started budding yet. And a few days ago plumtreeblossom and I planted a bunch of seeds, including lots and lots of baby snapdragons, which are already a green carpet of little sprouts.

I love my darling, who brings flowers and love into my life.

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. :-)

Had a wonderful, if fairly quiet, New Year’s Eve. In the afternoon I took cathijosephine and m_c_t to a nearby mall so m_c_t could get boots. It was snowing heavily out, and the plows hadn’t had a chance to clear the streets, so getting there was kind of an adventure, and a slow one.

We had a great time at the mall, including a yummy meal from a Johnny Rockets in the food court. However, I had hurt my foot pretty badly overnight (scratching a really bad itch), and towards the end of our time at the mall I was feeling feverish and looking flushed. (Zeph and I had thought at the time that it had turned into a systemic infection, but considering how immediately I got better when she had me put some antiseptic/anaesthetic on it, I think it must just have been the pain.)

Anyway, because of the snow, it took us a lot longer than anticipated to get to and from the mall. When we got home cathijosephine took great care of me, plying me with all sorts of useful OTC drugs. (Wow, that anaesthetic/antiseptic spray was incredibly effective.)

plumtreeblossom and I had plans to go to what was by all accounts a stunningly awesome New Year’s Eve party, but unfortunately we would have had to walk there from the T through unplowed streets, and with my injured foot and the snowstorm, that was a non-starter. plumtreeblossom was incredibly understanding about the change in plans. As it happened, she got so cold walking the couple blocks to Sound Bites for dinner (where we both had very yummy food and wine) that she was just as glad we hadn’t tried to make it to the party. Instead, after dinner, we put a rather odd Gary Cooper movie in the DVD player and snuggled on the couch with the cats for a while before toasting the New Year as cued by her Blackberry.

This morning, I started 2008 2009 with pancakes, bacon, and Jell-O made by my beloved plumtreeblossom; that has to be a very good omen. (The Jell-O is because I’d had a sudden craving the previous night, due to her singing the Jell-O jingle from the radio show we did.) She also sewed some buttons on my coat.

When I got home today, I had a rather disturbing surprise. First of all, the cat was out of food; she had tried to get into the bag of food in the closet, but only succeeded in knocking it over with the opening folded under it so she couldn't get in. Second of all, it was 35° Fahrenheit in the house. Our boiler occasionally randomly shuts itself off for no reason, requiring a button press to turn it back on. I did that right away, but I am still wearing a coat and hat; it takes a while for the house to warm up from that temperature. Poor kitty! I hope it wasn't that cold all night.

Anyway, I was delighted to spend the last afternoon of 2008 with cathijosephine and m_c_t, and to spend the last night of 2008 and the first morning of 2009 with my beloved plumtreeblossom. That left me with a warmth inside that mere temperature can’t touch.

Oh, and I just a few minutes ago got a nice New Year’s phone call from sionnagh. (She says everybody in Hawai‘i is complaining and wearing sweaters because it’s gotten down to 68°F. Remind me again; why do I live in New England?)

I am blessed with many wonderful friends (many of whom I wish I could see more often [*casts a glance towards northern England*]), a spectacular family (of origin and of choice), and a life full of love.

Awesome girlfriend! Well, you know plumtreeblossom, right? I don’t need to tell you how awesome she is. But I will mention that last night she gave me a gorgeous light PURPLE V-neck sweater. And it’s purple! And it looks great on me! Not only that, it’s purple!

(She also gave me a beautiful purple dress shirt, but unfortunately it’s size L in Twinks’, and I am not a twink. “There’s a big difference between gay boys and bi boys, and it’s about 80 pounds.” So it has to get exchanged before you can see how gorgeous I look in it. The sweater was also size L and fit perfectly.)

And she cooked me breakfast! She makes the best breakfast! She puts extra love in it. And bacon.

So when I trudged home from work, I knew I was going to have to dump my stuff and go out and shovel the walk and the driveway for forty minutes or an hour. Only when I got home, I discovered that cathijosephine out shovelling the driveway, having already cleared off the sidewalk. I grabbed a shovel and helped, but it was the difference between getting a nice little workout to warm you up and then going in and relaxing versus being wet and miserable and tired and overheated, and she had already done at least half of it when I got there. I have an awesome housemate.

Also happy to have darxus here tonight; it’s been nice chatting with him.

Weather, traffic, and my car’s engine permitting, I will get to see plumtreeblossom briefly tomorrow morning on her way to visit her family.

Life is really pretty good.

So I just discovered today that there’s a room in my house that I didn’t know about! It’s a storage room in the basement that is only accessible from the outside. I had seen the half-height door, but I knew where the door to my basement was, and I knew this wasn’t it, so I had just assumed it went into my neighbour’s basement. I was chatting with her today about some other stuff and she mentioned “your [i.e. my] little storage room” and I needed her to explain. Cool! It’s evidently not too dry, but it has a concrete floor and it’s reasonably sizable. It probably has almost as much usable storage space as the attic space over the garage, and has the huge advantage that I don’t need to climb a ladder to get to it. Score!

My neighbour has been trying to sell her place. If she’d moved out before mentioning that, I might well never have discovered what was behind that door.

Wow, busy weekend! Last night was closing night of Festival@First 5, including the one-act that plumtreeblossom directed and surrealestate, wellstar, missmelissa, oakenguy, and brief_life performed in. They all did an incredible job, and it was awesome, and I’m sorry it’s over.

After the performance was strike, which went smoothly, and a great cast party at hahathor’s stunning house. plumtreeblossom and I left early (around 1:30am) in part due to concerns about her cats, and collapsed into bed.

This morning we had a lovely breakfast on the patio at The Burren (in the course of which we ran into ladrescher, who was in the same one-act as hahathor), and then I came home to do some more cleaning and kitchen reorganization before my parents (silverlibre and ka9sqb) arrive tonight. Then cathijosephine came home briefly to take me to the room I rented for them near my house and show me around. (I hadn’t had a chance to go pick up the keys and take the tour, so she had ended up doing it on my behalf.)

And now I’m going to straighten up for a bit, and do dishes and laundry, and have my first shower since strike which I desperately need, and then I go meet my lovely girlfriend plumtreeblossom whom I have been dating for two years, and celebrate our two-year Sweetieversary with her at the same dim-sum place where we had our first date! Actually, specifying the start of our relationship is kind of tricky; we met through surrealestate, but didn’t really get to spend enough time together to get to know each other for quite some time. We did manage to express a certain amount of mutual interest before our first date, but for purposes of celebration, we count our first official date as the start of the relationship.

Thank you for two delightful years, sweetie! I love you.

(Sorry for any sensitive readers who may have gone into insulin shock. :-)

After our Sweetieversary dinner, we’re going to go pick up my parents at the train station and bring them back to Quincy and get them settled into their room. (It’s in a little rooming house just about two real blocks from my house. Very convenient!)

And I have tomorrow and Tuesday off from work, so I can spend the days touring Boston and Quincy with them. Yay!

So I think I haven’t actually mentioned this here: cathijosephine is moving in with me for a few months. Long story, but the short of it is that she’s renting out her condo and renting my spare room (which I’ve been meaning to get rented out for months and months!) for a while to save money towards the ultimate goal of moving up to New Hampshire onto darxus’s farm and being a farmer. There are some complicated feelings associated with her deferring the dream of moving up there for a little while, and with her renting out the condo she loves so much. But I am very excited about having her as a housemate.

Today we (darxus, mrf_arch, woodwardiocom, cathijosephine, and I, along with vast amounts of packing beforehand by xmelancholia) moved all the stuff to my house that’s coming, and the rest of them took the few big things that are going up to darxus’ place in New Hampshire up in woodwardiocom’s truck. It went much quicker than I was expecting! I didn’t think they’d be done by the time I had to take off.

And Chickenfinger’s here! I love that cat. She’s cowering in cathijosephine’s room right now; she hates travelling, and as you can imagine pretty much all of today was traumatic for her. But she’s doing OK and she’s so cute. I’m going to love having a cat around the house.

Another thing I have shamefully neglected to mention is the show that plumtreeblossom is directing. She’s directing one of the shows in Theatre@First’s summer one-act festival. (And surrealestate is the protagonist. I got to be rehearsal assistant — jobs in theatre are all about sleeping with the director! :-) It’s going to be so much fun! Y’all should come see it.

( details, shamelessly stolen from plumtreeblossom’s post. )

And now, I need to hop in the shower, because I’m about to go meet my lovely plumtreeblossom for Shakespeare on the Common! Yay! And tomorrow morning we get to have brunch with the cast and crew of the festival.