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On Saturday we went to RNA's (Reneé and Alex's) place for an Independence Day party. We ate lots of good food and played some good games. Andy fell asleep on the living room sofa. Liam and Liana were resting in a rattan satellite chair in the same room. I guess at one point Liana shifted her position, not knowing satellite chairs aren't exactly connected at the base, and the whole thing tipped, throwing them onto the floor. Andy, waking up from the loud noise, sat up, turned, and then the sofa's cushions promptly tipped up and threw him into the coffee table, spilling a drink and making his awakening even more disturbing. The whole event—Liam and Liana tipping, landing with a huge clunk and scream, then Andy turning over, blindly looking about before he was pitched into the coffee table, took only a second or two. Once I found that no one was seriously hurt, which took another two seconds, I couldn't help laughing. It was as if some mischievous poltergeist had moved invisibly through the room, creating havoc as it plowed through. Andy's wha'-happened-where-am-I expression looked great, right before he plummeted. Made my week. After playing a couple games at RNA's, Kory, Gina and I went back to Greenbelt to Prisca and Hopi's house for Prisca's 28th birthday party. Hopi put flowers in Prisca's hair and we all had a good time joking and telling stories, and drinking wine. Prisca and a lot of her friends work at the New Deal Café, so I got to hear lots of customer/worker gossip. On Sunday Gina and I went to my brother Bill's house for another Independence party. We helped Bill set up and light fireworks to entertain the kids. We also helped the kids light their sparklers. I hate sparklers. They are subtly dangerous. They're hot and they remain hot for a long time after they've stopped sparkling. Kids often drop them in the grass when they go out, then inevitably some barefoot kid steps on a hot one. That's usually after some other kid accidentally hits another while waving one of the the nasty sparkling magnesium wires around. At Bill's I supervised as long as I could stand it and then went inside, but luckily none of the children were hurt. I still hate sparklers though; can't trust 'em. On Monday Gina and I went to Dave Pipes' place to say hello, because he's one of a lot of people I stopped saying hello to for many years because I'm lazy and bad at keeping up with old friends. This, incidentally, is why I like First Friday parties; old friends have open invitations to drop by, and they know we'll usually be here on the first Friday of every month. OK, Reggie? Lisa? Maria? Bruce? Etcetera? And in the meanwhile I'll try to pick up the phone and give you folks a call. Honest. Anyways, we dropped by Dave's (and wife Kirstin and son Brendan) and he took us out, with mutual friend Jun, to dinner. What a horribly constructed sentence that was, but I'm getting tired you know, middle of the week and all. Anyways, Dave treated us to dinner at Eggspectations in Columbia. They have really tasty salads and fruit smoothies. I had fun pestering Dave's ten-year-old son and talking with Dave about where he disappeared for ten years (Chicago and Annapolis), then we all went back to Dave's house and talked, mostly about computer games and Science Fiction books. Dave lent us a book titled Souls in the Great Machine. Looks interesting, but I must get through this other pile of books... After visiting Dave and family, Gina and I returned home and met Kory and other G'belters at the lake for the fireworks show that had been postponed the night before because of rain. Nice fireworks. No sparklers. Here are some more pix of Prisca and flowers. She's pretty.    |
THE HEAP where we wade the web my
first computer |
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| INDEX gets you started |
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| FREQUENCIES we're addicted to these links boingboing |
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| THE 'HOOD links to friends and such wts |
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