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heap 2003
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Isabel Schmisabel,
Gaskets Fantastics
J:
Sorry we missed last week's news -- our computer crapped out on Sunday
night. I ordered another power converter and it took a week to get
here. That was fine with me, I needed a vacation from the 'net and
'puter anyways.
So, before the power in our 'puter went out, the power in our house
went out. This was Thursday before last, when Isabel came through. The
storm had barely started when, about 4:00 PM our electricity stopped,
along with the rest of the town's power. I felt as if I was hooked up
to the grid somehow -- I suddenly got very tired and slept mostly from
then until 10:00 AM the next day. Isabel was a very lulling hurricane
for me. Watching the trees waving about outside was very mesmerizing.
Meanwhile Gina stayed up most of the night waiting for a tree to invite
itself in.
G: Shaun
called here repeatedly trying to get us to go over to his house for a
hurricane party, going so far as to claim they (he, Mi Ae, and Kory)
were going to come over and take John with them to another party at
Pete's house. But I would have none of it. I wasn't going to leave
Booda and Mango here alone in the storm, or leave watch of my house.
And I wasn't going to let John leave me here alone, either. I had to be
here in case something happened that needed attention. Nothing happened
except we missed a nice party, which even had hurricane streaking, so I
hear, but I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it, and I still think it
would have been dangerous to be out and about. While
John slept the hurricane away, I watched it diligently until 2 or 3 in
the morning to make sure it didn't drop a tree on our house.
J:
As
hurricanes go, this was a pretty tame one, at least in our
neighborhood. We were without power for four days, and some power poles
and trees fell down. Our forest's floor was strewn once more with lots
of
branches, downed trees and plenty of green leaves, making the
shortest season, a
combination of Spring and Fall. I call it Sprawl.
On
the first day of Sprawl, Friday, as soon as I woke up I
remembered that
it was Talk Like A Pirate Day! So I talked like a pirate to anyone who
happened to be in earshot, and didn't let up until around 10:00 that
night. I found that after a few hours of speaking like a pirate, I
started thinking in pirate
lingo! That was a weird trip and after a few hours, kind of scary, in a
way, because then I started acting like
a pirate. Around noon I boarded Shaun and Mi Ae's ship and pillaged
their galley, because I hadn't eaten any breakfast. I found a bottle of
rum and mixed it with some Kahlua, something I never tried before (I've
since heard it's called a "bulldog"), especially for breakfast. It was
quite tasty though and I thanked my friends heartily and wished them a
fair wind afore I shoved off.
That night Dorian called various friends in town and invited everyone
over for a grill-off, to get rid of any fridge food that might go bad
in the days to come. We had a great feast there. The folks from the New
Deal cafe showed up with really good apple pies and other foods. A few
people brought their guitars and played all night. Gina spent a good
part of the evening singing Beatles songs. I continued speaking like a
pirate and confused a lot of folks for a few hours, hoping that some
people might decide to "go on account" and help me out with the
holiday. No one did though, so eventually I stopped talking like a
pirate, with some difficulty. I had to just stay quiet for a while, and
then slowly experiment with my "normal" dialect.
At this point a curious thing happened: when I stopped the pirate
jargon, it was as if I generated a localized pirate vacuum. Suddenly,
people around me who previously were not doing anything pirate-like,
suddenly these very same people started in with the "arrr mateys" and
"avast, ye scurvy millers." So from then on that night I shifted in and
out of pirate mode, making sure not to steal the wind from other sails.
We stayed very late at Dorian's, and finished up with a big interesting
discussion, loosely MC'd by Leo and Kory, about religion and theology.
Luisa decided that my religion (climbing trees) was a very good
religion.
The next day after a cold shower and cooking coffee on the porch, Gina
and I drove to her brother Grant's place, about three hours South, in
Virginia. There we met up with her sister Lori and mother Mary Ann, who
had come up from Florida to visit. The next morning I cooked up some
giant puffballs I had found the previous day, along with some veggie
sausage links. Deeeliscious. Then Grant took us to a park with nice
cascades of waterfalls. Gina and I hiked up the mountain about half a
mile, and back down again. Then Grant drove us all over tar nation and
showed us some of the sights around his little town.
Since no restaurants were open, Grant made us a yummy stir-fry with
rice dinner.
We came home that Sunday to a powered house, and immediately turned on
the computer. It stayed on for perhaps a half hour before it croaked.
The next day I grabbed a spare power supply from work, brought it home
and hooked it up in place of the snafued supply. the computer turned
on, so I knew what the problem was, but the temporary supply didn't
actually fit in the computer, so I ripped it out, took it back to work
and ordered a new supply that fit the computer's dimensions. Then we
rediscovered Real Life. I learned how to read books again, and I also
finally installed a pull-up board with rock climbing style holds, in
our laundry room where the ceiling is higher than other parts of the
house.
Gina started up her teaching jobs again (Summer's over, boo hoo) but on
Friday she took a trip with Jenny to Rehobeth Beach for the day. I went
to work that day and took a Geezer ride to Franklin's after work. Beer.
MMmmm. That night we went to the New Deal to see Floating Stone,
the instrumental duo of Jeff Aug and Niko Lai. They were amazing, and
have even improved since we last saw them, about three years ago. We
invited them and other New Dealers to our house after the concert for a
little informal soiree.
G: Jenny
introduced me to Thrasher's French Fries at the beach, possibly the
best french fries in the world. We had a great time lying out on the
sand, not going into the cold ocean except to feel how cold it was with
our feet, and walking around window shopping, buying chocolate, and
eating lunch.
On Saturday Stacy came over and we went and picked up a young woman
named Crystal on our way to Richmond to see The Gaskets perform at Matt's Pub Comedy Club. Crystal
had implored on the Gaskets message board for someone from the DC area
to go down to Richmond to see them, and I haven't really lost my
infatuation for them since the show at King's Dominion, and even though
Stacy missed their performance there, she's been taken in by the cd.
Kristin, Alison, and Marlene drove down too.
It took a bit longer to get there than we'd hoped, and we got a bit
lost once we got into town, so we missed about twenty minutes of their
show, but Kristin, Alison, and Marlene saved a big enough table for all
of us. A couple of songs after we got there, the band took a break, and
we took the opportunity to say hello and buy some t-shirts. I snagged
the last copy of their "early years" cd, which we won't play anymore
since Stacy burned a copy of it for us. This homemade cd is spray
painted black and hand numbered 6/100 (though they said they only made
15 copies), and it had a bit of paint on the wrong side. Stacy expertly
cleaned it off and said it plays fine, but doesn't recommend taking the
chance that more spray paint will come off in the cd player.
The place was pretty small and mostly occupied, but not crowded. I took
some pictures and video of the Gaskets onstage. I really enjoyed the
show. I just can't describe how adorable these guys are. The show was
over much too soon, but I think they did every song they know. I asked
Ross if I could look at his synthesizer, and he gave us a little tour
of its functions.
We might go down again sometime, or, we're still thinking about how to
get a Gaskets show in Greenbelt.
On Sunday Jenny came over and I went around on a GHI open house tour
with her. We looked at a bunch of homes for sale and then went to the
New Deal to ponder the choices. She narrowed her favorites down to 3
and the next day called to say she had chosen one, but is going to wait
a few days to continue mulling it over. If all goes well, Jenny could
be a Greenbelter by the end of the year!
John, Kory, and Stacy met us at the New Deal and after eating and
talking for a while we decided to play movie roulette. We high-tailed
it over to Lowes Center park, but were a bit too late for the only
movie we really thought we could stand to see. So we high-tailed it
again to Muvico (lots more choices) and hit the time for Matchstick Men
right on the head. I think everyone enjoyed it.
J: Actually
we didn't play real, hardcore, Movie Roulette. With real Movie Roulette, all players
agree to go to a nearby cineplex without checking which movies are
playing. Players agree to "pull the trigger,"
i.e. choose to see one of the available movies no matter how bad the
choices are or how late the players are for the chosen movie. Sometimes
this has disastrous consequences, other times players find an enjoyable
surprise. So why play Movie Roulette? One might as well ask why certain
people play Russian Roulette. (OK, I don't really have a good answer
for either question.)
This Monday after work the UPS guy dropped off our power converter. I
stuck it into the computer, turned it on. Works great. Then I hopped
into Gimmik and drove to the airport to wish Frank another fond
farewell. He was coming through from Florida on his way to
who-knows-where to fly helicopters for the Air Farce. Bon Voyage, Frank!
The days are getting cooler, soon I'll have to wear a sweatshirt when I
ride my bicycle to work. I finally turned in my motorcycle's tags to
the MVA, causing me to miss that part of my life's story a little.
Before hooking up with the Goddess I spent about 10 years riding
motorbikes through Spring, Summer, Sprawl, Fall, and Winter, with no
car for backup. Good memories. Maybe I'll save up and buy another scoot
someday. In the meanwhile, bicycles are fun, too.
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