|
Logs and the Logy
J: Last Friday
night we went to the Greek
Taverna to celebrate Rich's birthday. They had a long table set up
for Rich, with good bread, food, and wine. At the end of the evening
the owners presented Rich with a huge white birthday cake, because Rich
and Izolda have been celebrating birthdays at the Taverna for the last
several years. I'm somewhat ambivalent about the place — while I do
think that their food is quite tasty, the restaurant is pretty far from
our house and the menu is a bit sparse on the vegan front. I could
easily forgive those minor problems if it weren't for a note on their
menu: they charge three bucks for splitting an entree. This little
piece of coercive authority bugs me to no end, and every time I go to
the Taverna I'm reminded of it. So I go there twice a year, tops, for
Rizolda's birthdays. I'd probably go a few more times if the Lygizos's
would take that particularly annoying item off their menu, but it's no
doubt a big part of the "taste and the ambiance of the Greek isles."
Who can blame them for sticking with tradition? (He asked.
Sarcastically.)
OK, done with the stupid restaurant rules rant. On with the show!
After the birthday dinner, I felt unusually exhausted, so we came home
and I went to bed while Gina went to Rizolda's to continue partying.
On Saturday Luisa came over, and she and Gina baked a very yummy carrot
cake for Kory to celebrate something about which, surprisingly, I find myself
somehow unable to elucidate much further. But it was a really fantastic
cake with coconut yarbles and carrot shavings. While they made the cake
I cleaned our laundry room some more and put up some shelves in it.
Then Kory came over, we all had a mini-celebration (Kory yay!), ate a
lot of cake, and Kory and I playtested one of his new game designs.
Later that evening Gina and I planned to go to a drum & dij party
with Dorian, but I felt terrifically exhausted again, which was strange
because I hadn't really done much that day. We ended up not going, and
I crashed out on the sofa for a while. Then we lazily watched a bunch
of borrowed DVD episodes of
Sex & The City.
On Sunday Joey, our almost next door neighbor friend, offered the
services of his truck to grab some large logs from our community log
pile, to use as benches around our fire pit. We retrieved four stout
logs that I'm guessing weighed 150 to 250 pounds each. We carried them
to the side of our house. They were very heavy, and Joey had already
hurt his back carrying his sick dog upstairs that morning, but we made
sure to bend our knees and keep our backs straight. Even so, I was
slightly worried that I might have turned or lifted wrong, and would
reap some nasty back pain for a week or so. I've made that mistake
before, it's agonizing.
I didn't succumb once more to the weird fatigue syndrome that had hit
me the two previous days, but Gina did. During the day she slept some
on the sofa. She didn't feel well, and almost broke plans to go to Alex
and Renee's house to help address wedding invitations. But Renee
offered food and really needed help, so Gina left for her house, while
I stayed home wondering if Gina would fall asleep at Renee's place.
While she was gone, Kory visited, we playtested some more and then
watched a Sergio Leone film, which we just barely managed to finish. It
was an epic, to say the least. Gina made it home that night without
falling asleep at the wheel.
On Monday morning I found myself pleasantly devoid of any sign of back
pain, so I gave myself a pat, on the back of course, for bending those
knees. Kudos to Joey, too, for reminding
me to bend my knees. The strange sleeping disease
still had Gina in its grip, so after work we watched more S&TC. I
find it mildly amusing. Oh, but before that I tried to help Margit's
daughter Severina with some algebra. Bad idea. I can't remember very
much algebra, especially, it seems, finding x intercepts from quadratic
functions. My only consolation is a twisted hope — that maybe by the
time she's forty Sev won't remember much algebra either.
Yesterday Joey and I rolled the big logs into place around the fire
pit. The new circle of logs and cinder blocks looks most inviting.
Can't wait for our next First Friday Fire!
|
THE HEAP
where we wade the web
irv faq
justly
married pics
nyt:
for a day...
hands off
those nipples!
mad cow not
downer
big
and bad
the
limits of dissent
closed-cap
censorship
the
secret of enough
yellow
submarine
anarchy
at... wal-mart
pya!
lodger
tv
|