Journal Entry: June 30, 2008

We spent Friday evening with D– and his mom.

They came over shortly after I got home from work. We placed a take-out order at Abuelo’s, then D– and I ran up to a liquor store for a box of Chardonnay, grabbed a bag of ice so we could play MythBusters, and then picked up the food.

Dinner, of course, was delicious. As far as the MythBusters thing went, we took the plastic inner bag out of the wine box (which contains the actual wine) and soaked it in a bath of ice-cold saltwater. That’s supposed to be the fastest way to bring a liquid beverage down to chilly temperatures without access to a chemistry lab.

It worked…pretty well. Ten minutes in or so, it was about as cold as several hours in the fridge could have achieved. D– and I had several large glasses, and his mom had more than one.

We talked a lot, listened to some music, and then ended up playing Karaoke Revolution for several hours. It was nearly one in the morning by the time they left.

Saturday morning I woke up late (of course), and went with T– to [somewhere] to shop for [something] for [s–‘s] birthday. It’s all terribly hush-hush, so I can’t tell you any more than that.

Then I spent the afternoon working on the house. I replaced the tub faucet (which had a faulty shower diverter), I rewired the light-switch in our master bath so that the light doesn’t have to be on to provide power to the switch, and while I was at it I replaced the regular outlet there with a GFCI outlet, just because.

I also discovered that I’d lost my drill, and spent most of the next 24-hours in mourning, and then learned all of a sudden that K– has been borrowing my drill for a couple weeks now. So that’s all taken care of.

Saturday evening T– had a crop to attend, and we’d discussed doing a guys’ night at County Line BBQ, but K– ended up working most of the weekend, and B– was out in San Francisco all of Friday and most of Saturday, so when he got in he wasn’t really up to doing much. So it ended up being just D– and me.

We went to see Wanted which would have been a pretty cool movie (albeit cheesy in a Fantasy Action flick kind of way) except that the main character is a total dumbass and the character playing him is a major loser — you end up hating every moment that he’s on screen. And, him being the main character, that was something of a problem.

After the movie, we grabbed some Freddy’s for dinner, then went to D–‘s apartment and watched another awful movie: The Covenant. This one was somewhat intentional — it struck me as the same basic story, except with warlocks instead of assassins. A better description, now that I’ve seen it, would be The Craft with dudes. It was not good.

To make up for all the terrible movieage, we went up to Henry Hudsons for a few drinks, and that was pretty fun. I get home a little bit before one in the morning.

Yesterday morning, quite unintentionally, I slept through church. T– came home right after and called out to ask if I was awake, and I discovered then, at 11:40, that the answer was no. She also mentioned that K– and N– were coming over for lunch, so I jumped up and grabbed a really quick shower.

We went to Jersey Mike’s for lunch, which I had just told D– I didn’t like, but once we got there I discovered I’d been thinking of Winston McDougals, and Jersey Mike’s is quite all right. So there’s a little story for you.

After lunch, K– and N– went home to take naps, and I went home and should have, but instead I watched a ton of Boston Legal with T–, and then suddenly it was 6:00 and D– showed up for dinner and a few minutes later K– and N– showed. T– made some great sloppy joes, and I made salsa, and after dinner we watched an 80’s movie, because we were all gathered together.

This time it was one of K–‘s picks, and we chose Bladerunner over Tron in a split decision. Mostly, it made me want to read the book. The premise was great, but I felt like they left out most of the action inherent in the story so that they could focus more directly on the malaise and inner turmoil — two things that don’t translate well to the TV screen, even if they were central to the written work.

It was fun, though. Our guests cleared out right around nine, and T– and I watched three more episodes of Boston Legal before we finally gave up and went to bed. I had a lot of trouble falling asleep, though, and it was probably around one in the morning before I finally drifted off.

Then I slept late again this morning. Very late. I think it may be a side effect of some painkillers I’m taking for my lower back, but it’s more likely the result of all those ones in the morning. Either way, it’s a nuisance. Hopefully I’ll be back on schedule tomorrow morning.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.