Happy Holidays! -- December 27th

I’m not much of a holidays guy, but this week was pretty cool. I got to see Caro while she was in to visit her family, and I actually had a nice time with my mom and sister over Christmas. I got to meet new members of my family, and spend some quiet time curled up watching Dexter - Season 3 with Jero. What could be better for the holiday season? *grin*

Sunday I picked up Caro at the airport and we went downtown to have dinner and warm up at Steak n’ Shake. After eating we braved the freakin’ cold! to run over to Borders. Caro sneaky bought me a holiday gift (a Stephen Colbert desk calendar!) and then we headed back to my apartment to nest and de-thaw. We watched two episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (“Once More with Feeling” and “Restless”) and then cuddled up to sleep. It was fantastic to have Caro cuddled up in my bed again! B)

Monday Caro and I slept for about twelve hours before finally emerging from my apartment for sushi. We then headed down to Bloomington, stopping into a knit shop and then hanging out at the Runcible Spoon until it was time to go meet her parents. They made us dinner, and I had an enjoyable time with them. After excellent food and conversation, I headed back to Indy to snuggle with Jero and watch Dexter for as long as we could stay awake.

Tuesday I had to go back to work, but I started a 9:45 AM schedule which was much better than having to be at work at 8. I wound up leaving work two hours early thanks to E-time (Saca isn’t such a Grinch after all!), and spent the night alone, hiding out and storing up social energy before having to deal with my mom and family. I did some journaling and laundry, and stayed up way too late since I had the opportunity.

Wednesday I got up relatively early and met Jero for lunch before driving down to Bloomington to meet up with Chhu and her boyfriend Semo. Chhu drove us to Mt. Vernon to my half-brothers’ dad’s place, where Mom made us a huge yummy dinner, with homemade New York-style cheesecake for dessert. Mom got me a lot of crap for Christmas – Chhu was smart and asked for just money. B)

As I posted day-of, Thursday (Christmas itself) wasn’t quite as fun. I was cranky and didn’t sleep well, and Mom was too sick to join us for the yummy dinner she’d prepared. When we left I drove part of the way back, and then Chhu took over since she was getting car sick and feels better if she’s driving. I made it back to Jero’s late, and spent the night snuggling and watching Dexter.

Friday night I wanted to go back down to Bloomington for Dadypi’s birthday. However, I am poor and my gas tank was on empty, and Jero, who I was hoping would come with, was feeling sickly. Add thick fog and a hour drive to that, and we decided to stay home and just watch more Dexter. I’ll take Dadypi out later when the financial and meteorological forecast is better.

Today I’m at work, and tonight I plan to hang out with Ke when she returns from visiting her family. I haven’t gotten to see Ke all week since she’s been out of town, so I look forward to cuddling and catching up. The rest of the weekend should be peaceful and relaxing. If Ke’s on the computer I’ll probably work more on my D&D campaign, since I’m fretting about now that a date is set.

Hope everyone is having a happy holiday!

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1813

Week in Review

This week started off sucking and then got better towards the weekend. I think I went back to work too soon and really suffered through my day Monday through Wednesday. I thought I’d be OK since my job isn’t physically taxing, but I overlooked the ability to lie down with some ginger tea when I felt bad. Luckily I had a nice four-day holiday weekend to spend recovering, which had me feeling 100% better by Saturday.

Last Sunday while Mira was in town Ke had to go into work for a while, so I ran home to get books and character sheets to role-play with Mira while Ke was gone. However, by the time I got back to Ke’s, Ke was already off work, so the three of us just hung out in Ke’s living room. Ke did homework, Mira wrote for NaNoWriMo, and I got distracted by the Internet journalled.

Monday I returned to work, which was probably a mistake. I felt like hell all day, and didn’t really get much done. After work I ran a TinyPlot on TFUMUX. It started late and ran far too long, but I had a lot of fun, and we accomplished our goal – rescuing Scarlett and Temera from the clutches of Cobra! It was cheesy 80s fun.

Tuesday was another bad day at work. Even though I wasn’t feeling all that well, and I’d had a really stressful day at work, I did have a nice evening with Nivagi. When I got home from work I had a little bit of time to unwind before Nivagi finally got a hold of me to tell me she was downstairs – I was having phone issues. The two of us went out to eat. I’ve been somewhat incommunicado since my energy level has been so low, so we had a lot to catch up on and talk about. After dinner we headed back to my apartment to snuggle and watch more Buffy.

Wednesday Ke was supposed to drive home to see her family for Thanksgiving, but she decided to postpone leaving until Thursday morning. I’d had another crappy day at work, and was planning to just hide out alone Wednesday night, but since Ke stayed in town we hung out and watched Family Guy on hulu.com. It was a good way to unwind after a bad work week.

Ke left town early Thursday morning, and I had much of the day to myself until Mika came by to visit. Mika and I wound up napping and then when she had to leave I headed over to Jero’s for Thanksgiving dinner. Jero made a fantastic meal with delicious turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, stuffed mushrooms, etc.

Friday I didn’t have any plans, so I got to enjoy the day off. Jero and I got to sleep in superbly late. Neither of us had to work -- Jero took off since I had the day as a holiday. We didn’t have any social obligations, so we both turned off our alarms and slept as late as we wanted. It was decadently sinful, and I enjoyed it very much. When at last we did wake up, we did some late Black Friday shopping and then hid away from the world.

Saturday Jero and I went to an open skate with the Circle City Socialites roller derby team, which was a lot of fun. Jero and I skated for two or three hours, which is the most exercise I’ve had since my surgery. When we got back to Jero’s, she set me up a profile on her Wii Fit, and I got in another half-hour of aerobic and balance-building exercises. When Ke got back into town, I went over to her house and we ate and watched TV until Ke conked out and I joined her in bed.

Today I got to sleep in late with Ke. When hunger drove us from her bed, we went to get Thai food, continuing my experimentation with how well I’ve recovered from my radiation treatments. The food was yummy, and after hanging out with Jero while Ke ran to work, I spent the evening with Ke, journaling while she did her nursing school homework. It was a pleasant end to a week start started off bad but finished well.

"You can count on my support for your efforts to revitalize the nuclear weapons infrastructure."
- Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, voicing his support in a memo for the nightmarishly Freudian "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator," or "bunker buster" bomb, which House Republicans had cut from the 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Bill
Source:
The Washington Post

Great Weekend

I had a very nice weekend, although since I had to work on Saturday so I didn’t get as much rest, sleep, or time as I would have liked. Friday when I got off work Ke came over to she and I could drove down to Bloomington to go to a party with muppetofthenight and my sister. We had to nap before we left since we were both so tired, and on the way to the party we stopped at my mom’s to pick up a dishwasher.

I had fun at J031’s birthday party, even though Ke and I couldn’t stay late since she had class in the morning and I had to work. We made it back to my apartment alive and slept until I had to go to work and she to class. We were anticipating trouble getting downtown because of a marathon that day, but while Ke had problems dealing with the marathon fans I got in without incident.

For a Saturday, work wasn’t actually that bad. When I got off work I intended to go straight to St. Louis to see Ra, but I forgot my cell phone hands-free so I had to run home before leaving town. The drive was long but uneventful, and I got into St. Louis around ten PM, calling to tease Ra that I was just leaving.

Saturday night Ra and I kissed, cuddled, and snuggled up on the couch to watch Buffy season five. Ra’s husband Sckl had to go to bed earlier than we did, so we turned the sound down and watched two more episodes with the subtitles on since our hearing isn’t the greatest. Ra and I stayed up long enough to finish the first disc, and then joined Sckl in sleep.

Sunday morning Ra and Sckl let me sleep late, while Ra grabbed a shower and Sckl made us breakfast. I got up and ate, and the three of us re-watched the Buffys that Sckl missed because he went to bed earlier than Ra and I. We discussed what we wanted to do that day, and decided to go comic shopping before Sckl’s date with M@-6.

Sckl and I grabbed showers and snuggled Ra until Sckl had to leave for his date. Ra and I went out comic shopping and grabbed lunch. We went back to her apartment and snuggled more before moving to the living room to watch more Buffy. We ordered pizza and watched Buffy until Sckl came home, paused it to hang out until he went to bed, and then stayed up watching more.

Monday morning after staying up late watching Buffy with Ra I slept for about four hours before having to get on the road back to Indianapolis. I reluctantly kissed Ra good-bye, wishing I could stay longer, and then drove back to Indy, going directly to work. Work was busy but got quieter towards the end of the day since I’m back on the late shift, so I had time to catch up.

I went to Jero’s after work, with the intention to hang out and MUX. Unfortunately, I was so tired after four hours of sleep, four hours of driving, and eight hours of work, that I was too tired to RP and instead semi-idled on the MUX while discussed Gen Con plans with Jero. Eventually I became too cranky and sleepy to even do that, so Jero and I gave up and went to bed.

“Already, the Kay report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations."
-- President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union address, on evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

"I don't think they existed."
-- David Kay, after stepping down as the U.S. special adviser leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, on the lack of evidence proving Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal (Newsweek)