elfs | Entries tagged with weekend

It was a cliff. As cliffs go, it was pretty small, no more than six meters. But it was a landslide cliff, about 60°, sharp broken shale all the way down to the water's edge at the bottom.

The front tire slipped. I went over.

Current Mood: sore
Current Music: Caprice, The Road Goes Ever On and On

Well, it was a nice weekend. Saturday we went out to get the tree, stopping by RePC to recycle the monitor that my new wide-screen replaced. I discovered, to my disgust, that the A/B box I have doesn't do pass-through for sizing signals, so I have to unplug the monitor going back and forth between all the different computers I use in the office: my old desktop (single core AMD with 512MB of RAM), my laptop, and the router.

Christmas Tree

We got the tree at Ikea, which sold us a gorgeous tree for $20, and a promissory note of a $10 gift certificate if we brought the tree back on January 2nd. Not a bad deal, all things considered. Oh, sure, Ikea gets us in the door, but after a lunch of meatballs I think we'll be done.

The girls, Omaha, Lisakit and I all helped decorate the tree, going through the annual ritual of checking all the lights and digging out all the random knicknacks that go with the glass balls and blinking lights. I'm of the minimalist camp myself: anything more than ball ornaments and lights, delicately arranged, is garish. Apparently, my family likes garish.

Sunday, we had our monthly Costco run, and despite Omaha's "limited" list we spent over $400 on food and supplies. That had better last us a month. I can't believe a household of 5 goes through that much food in a month, but I guess we do.

The evening D&D game was quiet. For a GM who doesn't like magic, Lisakit's throwing a lot at us, giving the theif and monk not a whole lot to do. Dinner was chinese take-out from the local place.

I had a very difficult conversation with Yamaraashi-chan, though. I found out that she had violated the TOS of Facebook, lied on her proposal to appear to be older, and brazenly violated the household rules that she wasn't to join social networking sites without informing me. Unlike her peers' clueless (or heedlessly indifferent) parents, I have something of a decent grip on these issues. It didn't help that her "away" message was deliberately crafted to sound like she was a prostitute ("It was just a joke!" she insisted. Not funny, kid) or that I finally had that "You're not leaving the house looking like that, young lady!" moment when she headed out with as much sleazy make-up around her eyes and mouth as I've ever seen on Aurora Ave. She's trying so hard to be "grown up," but she doesn't understand what that means. I wish she would seek attention for the things I praise her for, like her writing and school work, and for the things her peers attend to, like her looks.

So, she's lost her Facebook account (for lying to the service about her age) and she's grounded (for lying to me). I don't know if it'll get through to her that even I have my limits, but it's all I know to do at this point.

Current Mood: parental

Danger, Will Robinson!

Saturday was your typical morning. After a catch-all breakfast, we headed out to Kouryou-chan's school for the monthly cleanup routine. It was exceptionally routine. We were the only people there, so Omaha weeded and picked up while I did the gutters. As I got around to the Primary Garden, though, I spotted this new cable running from the post on the edge of the property down to under the eaves, where it links in with a bunch of other cables that lead from the post to an elevated roof post.

My biggest guess is that this is a data cable for collecting information from the new digital power meter on the property. But that doesn't look safe at all to me, and I didn't go anywhere near it while cleaning out the gutters in that section.

We bailed after two hours, all necessary work done. I had a brief talk with Kouryou-chan about the difference between honor, reputation (thank you, Lois), and character, and why we did these chores even when no one was watching.

We went home, had lunch, cleaned up, and then headed out to the Saturday dance practice, where I was immediately roped into being a prop for the school's annual Nutcracker, as "a parent" for the opening party scene.

I protested. I have three left feet! But no dice, Omaha was doing it too, so I quickly learned my routine, coming in on the stage, bowing to the real dancers, then heading stage right to play watermelon-cantelope silently with the other parental players and herding the very little children, the ones in pre-ballet, through the circuit laid out on the marley floor.

It was fun, the other parents were helpful, the children were delightful, as well as the one older dancer girl assigned to play the role of the maid, one of those irrepressibly happy people who just seemed damned glad to be doing something. The girl who plays Clara, in contrast, is very serious, with her face set and determined as she demonstrates her toe-standing skills. She's a good dancer, but has to work on that audience-pleasing stage-presence thing.

After the practice was over, we went home where I spent much of the afternoon hacking. For dinner I made halibut chowder (yum!), and we played a round of Sorry! before bed.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Orbital, Are We Here?

Although Friday was quiet, the rest of the weekend wasn't.

Saturday was Foolscap, the annual reader/writer SF convention held up in Redmond. We headed out early, after a quick breakfast of donuts, although I wasn't feeling so great so I had oatmeal instead of sugary pastries. We got there around 10:30am, checked in, and I dispatech Yamaraashi-chan to the shopping mall attached to the convention hotel. She had a birthday party to attend that afternoon and had to go buy a gift. She knows the rules for mall shopping and her phone was fully charged, so I wasn't too worried.

After she had come back, I ran her down to her birthday party, which took much longer than anticipated. I figured it was a 25 minute drive down to the skating rink from the hotel. Hah, foolish Elf. Some car lost a radiator line and overheated, and I was stuck on the flamin' I-405 S-curves for almost an hour, one way.

With Yamaraashi-chan effectively occupied until the following morning, I was free to hang out with my writer friends and acquaintances. I bought a book in the dealer's room (and the author, Jay Lake, said, "Here, let me sign for you," to which I couldn't say no), went to a panel, hung out with a very cool artist whose very failure to ship the tarot deck I fell in love with last year finally kicked my ass into gear and I started designing the home page and handlers for the Yowlers series. Got a hell of a lot of progress done in the spare hour I had between panels, too. In fact, I've set a deadline: Victor and Sezi is going out the door next Friday. Why? Because Steve freakin' Jobs says: "Real Artists Ship."

Omaha and I went to dinner with another writing couple, he's published, and he paid me the compliment of saying "You know how to up the ante," which is actually quite a compliment, and said that I should more seriously consider long form for sale. The problem is that every time I try long-form, I get bored. I should rethink that; after all, the Yowler series has now hit 70,000 words, I've been at it for over a year, and I'm not entirely bored with it yet.

Kouryou-chan had a great time with the other kids there, and Omaha and I spent most of our time with her policing her from trying to get her hands on some publisher's samples of Love and Rockets and the furry series The Futher Adventures of Captain Jack.

Anyway, we had a great time, I scored some excellent books (inculding free copies of the first four books in the second Battle Angel Alita saga, and an atrocious "SF Romance" duology that was also free), met some great people (and one of those typical, rather depressing, "We can't save the Earth until we kill off half the population" types), and got home by 11:00pm or so. Good 'con.

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Him, This We Know

Friday night

fallenpegasus came over and we had no-holds-barred halibut stew (with heavy cream and bacon fat), tried Red Knot Shiraz 2002 (yumm...mmy!), and watched the incredibly, inexcusably bad Robot Monster, a film about the last family on Earth and the monster (really, a guy in a gorilla suit with a space helmet and rabbit-ears antennae stuck to his head) who was out to kill them, but who fell in love with the beautiful young daughter with razor-sharp eyebrows and deadly cheekbones. With beginnings and endings cobbled out of One Million Years B.C cutting-room floor rejects and a script so horribly ham-handed, I'm afraid I can't find much good to say about it. Apparently, neither could Joel & Co on the Satellite of Love.

Saturday, after a breakfast of bacon & eggs, Omaha, Kouryou-chan and I drove over to her school, Three Tree Montessori, where for the third time this year I found myself up on the roof, cleaning out the gutters. It wasn't nearly so bad this year as last-- I think last year they'd let it go for a year-- and since it hasn't rained in a week the handling wasn't nearly as bad as it had been.

After that, we ran over to Oloteas for a pleasant little evening with friends, a potluck and a ritual. This ritual was done by four beloved friends of mine and was actually rather nice although, unlike most rituals, there wasn't a lot of congregation involvement. Still, we swam in the pool, and Kouryou-chan gave me a few heart-stopping moments when she tried to swim without her float assistance.

I was griping about my recent trip to the physician and his general assessment that, "Yeah, you're about to turn 40." I will say that there are few things more embarassing than having your wife turn to two other women you're currently dating and saying, "40? I haven't noticed any problems with his virility. Have you?" "Nope, nope, haven't noticed." Sigh.

Today, after a breakfast of delicious waffles, we went out to Home Depot and bought more stone for the stairs that lead up to the west garden run, only to find out that we'd first need another section of retaining wall to hold the garden up before we made the stairs. What a pain in the ass. But man, I feel like I've dug up the entire planet. My arms are building fast. Since it was still out on the counter, I made my lunch by brushing a cheese sandwich with olive oil and smushing it in the hot waffle iron. It looked weird and tasted great.

And, given all the crap we dug up today along the fenceline, This entry at Worth 1000 is Worthy, indeed.

Current Mood: tired

It was too hot today. We had a long list of things we wanted to get done, but only one of which we actually got to. We need to build a second retaining wall corner to the first for the space between the primary retaining wall and the foundation of our property, so we headed out to Home Depot to get gravel, stones, and fresh sand for the kids' playpit. The gravel and sand totaled up to the weight tolerence of our little station wagon, so we skipped the stones. But finding everything, getting the advice we needed, and packing it took so long that by the time we were done we headed to the Southcenter mall food court to have a very late lunch.

It's hard to go out and find drinks that aren't heavily sugared or caffeinated. I eventually settled on a jug of grapefruit juice and a turkey-and-cranberry sandwich. I'm trying to eat better, really.

We got home and just dumped the gravel, but we cleaned out the sandpit and replaced the old sand with fresh sand. Afterward, Omaha played with Kouryou-chan in the pit for a bit, then I took over and we made castles and sculptures. She's a bit lonely; her sister is at her mothers', the neighbors to the west are out for the weekend and the neighbors to the east have been gone as well. (Although listening to them get in their cars this morning was painful; the little girl was screaming over and over, "I can't, I can't!" and the mother was shouting at her and... oy. What is with people whose immediate response is to turn everything up to 11 and leave it there?)

Current Mood: hot
Current Music: Lalo Schifrin, Mission Impossible