Life, How Exciting Is That?

[elfs]

It was otherwise pretty quiet this weekend. Friday was a bear; I had to stay late at the office because, at three freakin' PM, the project manager for a maintenance release told me that he needed some patches I'd submitted to the main branch to be put into a maintenance branch. Like a good little corporate drone, I complied. I didn't get out of the office until nearly seven. It was cold and drizzly, and I was slated to be downtown until 7:30 or so, at which point I'd end up on a bus that took the long way home. Well, at least most of my batteries were fully charged.

I sat under an overhang at 2nd and Virginia, across the street from the new bar, Wann, and waited. Although I'd recently updated my library list on my Palm, I went back to re-read Peter Watt's Blindsight, a nasty book filled with some serious thinking about biology and neurology. While I was there, I saw two kids, somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, hiding out in the lee of a building, in the shadows and away from the rain, smoking. I love Seattle at night and wish I could spend more time there, but I wondered what those two were doing, and where were their parents, and all that. The younger of the two was a boy, and the older appeared to be a girl. Both wore baggy sweatpants, Nike sneakers, and multi-layered sports jerseys that reached down to their knees.

I kept thinking that until the girl walked up to two women sitting on the actual bench for the bus and said in a shockingly deep and masculine voice, "Excuse me. Ya got any cigarettes?"

I just sat there stunned for a minute. My gods, he was quite possibly the most beautiful boy I've ever seen in my entire life. I wondered briefly if he was legal, and then shook my head; I don't get along with anyone under 25 that way anymore. Not enough in common. But damn, he was pretty in a "You're ending up in a story, soon" kind of way.

The bus came, I pulled out my laptop and beat out 2,300 words in the 90 minutes that the bus ride took. Not about pretty boys at all, but instead a rather straightforward boink story about a guy lost in the woods and a reclusive Yowler girl who rescues him. I got home and Omaha fed me meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I went to bed early.

Saturday was much quieter. The weather was completely uncooperative in getting any yard work done, so we stayed inside and did indoor chores and stuff. The vacuum cleaner rugbeater head broke down, so I had to take it apart and clean out all the hair that had wound itself around the bearings, which is the usual problem. Something sticky had gotten into it as well, and that needed to be cleaned out. Gross.

We hit the library where, I discovered, it was annoyingly difficult to get a copy of Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. I've been on a classics kick recently; I just finished Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (and I remain convinced that Burke was not nearly as "conservative" as he has been depicted, and Oakeshott was probably right about him) and have put Smith's On the Wealth of Nations on it recently. But if I want to read Kirk, it seems I'd have to buy it from Regnery, and believe me, I don't want to give Regnery a fucking dime.

In the afternoon, we went over to visit lisakit's place, who wasn't feeling too good after a minor procedure. The kids played solitaire and looked through a copy of Zombie Fluxx; Lisa and Omaha fell asleep in the LaZBoys. After a while, Omaha and the girls went home, I stayed for another hour or two, helped Lisa make her dinner, then left her knowing her roommates would be returning within the hour and she'd be fine.

Watching the cake grow.

We scrounged leftovers for dinner. I ended up making myself a simple meal of tortilla, sausage, cheese, and pico de gallo. After dinner, Omaha invited the girls to make "instant chocolate chip cake," which was pretty weird; it involved traditional baking ingredients put into the microwave on high for three minutes. The resulting cthulhoid growth was dense and curiously sponge-like. Both of them thought it was also too sweet.

After all that I was tired, and so were the girls, so when I announced I was going to bed at the same time they were Kouryou-chan said, "Cuddle?" in her cutest voice, and Yamaraashi-chan nodded enthusiastically.

So I ended up in bed with the girls. This does not qualify as fun. For one thing, Kouryou-chan is a rambunctious snot who seems to think it's fun to try and bruise daddy. Yamaraashi-chan tells jokes that make us both laugh. Rest is out of the question. I finally said, "Okay, girls, I need real sleep. Both of you back to your own beds."

"Awww!"

"No, really. You'll get sleep, I'll get sleep. It's important."

"Okay." And off they went. I have no idea what time they really fell asleep, because I was out almost instantly.

Sunday, more of the same wild life. Tons of laundry. Clean the bathroom. Clean the kitchen. Make eggs for breakfast. Gross the kids out with more salsa on my eggs. It's veggies. It's got a ton of vitamin A. They're still grossed out.

We made a run to the bookstore and then the grocery, then home for a quiet afternoon of more homework and more laundry. I didn't get a whole lot of geeking done; Firefox is currently broken on my computer and the rebuild's taking a while. In the meantime, I'm stuck with Chrome. I did read some of the book I'd bought at Barnes & Noble, Designing Interfaces. The girls and I played exciting rounds of Ker-Plunk, the marble game, and I made popcorn.

For dinner I made stir-fry chicken with some frozen veggies we had lying around, while Omaha helped the girls update their ipods with Sooj's album. Now we're all sitting around, reading and writing.

Domesticity just ain't pretty.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Domesticity may not be pretty, but speaking from very recent personal experience, doing it with pretty women takes it from the banal to being fun. :)

[maellenkleth]

grokked in amplitude!

[featheredfrog.livejournal.com]

Domesticity just ain't pretty.

Pretty? Eye of beholder. Your weekend sounds pretty(great) to me.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

PJ at King Arthur Flour did a test of the microwave-in-a-mug cake recipe: http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2008/10/19/re-the-5-minute-chocolate-cake-email-how-desperate-are-you/

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Yep, pretty much came out the way we thought. Too spongy for us, but the kids liked it.

Try brownies instead....

[(Anonymous)]

I use a standard Hershey's brownie recipe in the microwave. Lube (cooking kind please) the inside of a coffee cup and put 1/4 cup of brownie batter in there. Microwave for 1 minute or so (depends on the power of your microwave) and there you go. Lots denser, and really easy. Cover the rest with plastic wrap (pressed down onto the batter to block out air) and store as long as it will last. You can also freeze the batter lumps (use an ice-cream scoop to portion them into a muffin tin lined with foil cups - peel off the foil before cooking) and have them even longer.

Enjoy!
Joshua

[funos.livejournal.com]

Blindsight is the most influential SFnal piece I've read so far. Its implications just keep haunting me.