Thursday, July 06, 2006
Mrowm….screeech! [Car driving noises]
Hey, everyone, how’s it going? Another of my sporatic little news flashes, stuffed to the gills with lots of updates and happenings. Lets get started!
Le Mis was a great amount of fun to see. A lot of good, and very well performed, music, some very interesting staging and, overall, a lot of fun to be had. J(5) and I went with a couple of…couples, Bon-Bon and Guns, and L and D (New names!). J(5) and myself got our tickets a little bit later, so the cheap seats were all sold out, so we got some more expensive ones further down along the mezzanine than all the rest. So J(5) and I just sat, enjoyed, and held hands throughout the first half, and when the intermission struck we snuck back to converse with everyone only to find Bon-Bon (who knows her musicals, believe me) talking with a random stranger about how the acoustics were not quite up to speed and the fleem-quabs were a bit spor-laqular, or something like that. J(5) and I just looked at each other and said, ‘well heck, we thought it was just great.’ So there you go, similar dispositions, too, yay!
Also, the Florida trip happened! I’ve officially ‘met the family’. Here’s a breakdown of some of the more intriguing events.
Wednesday: We flew out together. J(5) doesn’t have any more vacation time, so she had been working extra-hard to get all her work done and her hours in before we left, so by the time we were both seated in the plane, Wednesday morning, she was ready to just cuddle up on my left arm and fall asleep. And so she did! I, being the entertainment-minded traveler that I am, had picked up a couple of Game Boy Advance games to keep myself entertained during the flight. Both turned out to be great, fantastic fun, and neither required me to use my left shoulder, so J(5) was happy as…well…as J(5).
We met Mom Swanson, Grandma Swanson, and J(5)’s two nephews at the airport. We went home, briefly, before meeting J(5)’s sister at dinner. I will refer to J(5)’s sister from here on in as ‘Dork’, for reasons that should be apparent to anyone that has seen her new house. No, no I won’t. I’ll call her ‘Mommy’. Because though she may have a real name, it has been usurped by her two sons (the nephews) and now she is mommy. Anyway, we had some pizza, I did some talking, we went home and walked the dog (and the boys) and went outside to feed the fish and turtles in the canal behind the house. I also got to seem some pictures of hurricane damage. Nice.
Thursday: (We slept in a lot). Then we went out to a nice mall nearby the house. Mostly we walked around a lot, had some ice cream, and I drooled over books in the bookstore. And I tried on some Speedos, but I’m not quite that ‘in shape’ or that ‘serious a swimmer’ yet, so I passed. Went home, played games, did reading, played with boys, walked dog, fed fish, and chatted up various family members. If it sounds tedious, that’s because I’m typing it wrong. I like chatting with people and, oddly enough, I like feeding fish.
Friday: Discovery center! I still have a curious obsession with science museums. It can probably be traced back several years to when I was younger and…well…was totally obsessed with science museums. It was also and excuse to take the boys out for some entertainment. J(5) was quite nice to me and kept an eye on the children for the much of the time (children who are too young to be reading plaques and discovering the infinite strangeness of the universe…yet) so that I could check out all the really, really neat stuff. Like I said, she’s really nice to me. And it was a lot of fun! We hit up burger king afterwards (kids meals! Superman toys!) Played some skip-bo with Mom Swanson. Fun day.
Saturday: (We slept in a lot.) And then we woke up, went to Waffle House (yum) and then painted Mommy’s New house! Yeah, they got a new house just as we were coming to visit so we showed up and helped them get jump-started on their home improvement projects. J(5) and I replaced the door handles and deadbolts, which I’d never done before (J(5) did most of the work) and then we slapped primer on the kitchen, dining room, living room, and family room. And when I say we, I mean J(5), myself, mommy, and ‘W’, a friend of mommy who lives across the street. The boys had some friends come over, which was great because they were kept mostly entertained and mostly away from wet primer. Sure, household fixing doesn’t sound terribly interesting, but I had a great time, engaged in lots of lively banter, and primer-grafitti’d several rooms in Mommy’s house. I was not responsible for the ‘Mommy is a dork’ tag, but you can still see that one on the wall if you look close. Just another good reason for them to finish the painting, though. We were thanked profusely, returned home, and zonked out, hard, cuddling into dreamland. (How I love the cuddling!)
Sunday: Get-together BBQ! We all hitched up a bunch of food and wheeled it over to Mommys new hose where we fired up a grill, created some eatables, and I got to meet some more of the family and friends. I also spent a lot of time tearing it up in the backyard pool with the boys. Young boys like nothing more than big, strong men to toss them around in pools and be silly with them. So we got along ‘swimmingly’ (heh). Afterwords, I did fireworks! They’re illegal in Juneau, (and I think they’re illegal in LA, but I’m not so sure…) but totally on par in FLA, so we bought a huge pack and attempted to set fire to the driveway with pretty colors. (The boys were in charge of putting the fireworks down, and then turning and running out of the way.) Strangest moment: a frog got into some loose primer paint, somehow, and left froggy tracks all the way down the driveway.
Monday: I veged out a bit while J(5) went off and had some time with Mom Swanson, then I went out with them (I was explicitly invited!) to see Superman returns. Review: I was hoping for more super-action, but it was more of a drama, though a pretty good one at that. Don’t take young children. We saw the movie, then…(and I know I’m getting the timing wrong, but it happened *sometime*) we went out to a swap meet, and a MEATY one at that. Unfortunately, for all its interest, they weren’t selling too much quirkily random stuff, and so I didn’t pick anything up. It was fun to look around, though the humidity nearly killed me. We also got some delicious subs and then went out to Roadhouse for dinner. Good food.
Tusday: We left in the afternoon, and we finally got to meet ‘Daddy’, who had been (get this) in LA the whole time we were in Florida. (His work travels). Anyway, we got to sit around and chat, watch the shuttle launch, and have one last family ‘hurrah’ before J(5) and I packed our things and went home. I’d gotten her addicted to one of my games over there, but she let me use the GBA on the flight home, so long as I let her use my shoulder. Worked out great for everyone.
So there’s your update. Hope everyone is having fantastic times. I’ll be up in Alaska in a month for some wedding happy-times! Ciao!
-N
Hey, everyone, how’s it going? Another of my sporatic little news flashes, stuffed to the gills with lots of updates and happenings. Lets get started!
Le Mis was a great amount of fun to see. A lot of good, and very well performed, music, some very interesting staging and, overall, a lot of fun to be had. J(5) and I went with a couple of…couples, Bon-Bon and Guns, and L and D (New names!). J(5) and myself got our tickets a little bit later, so the cheap seats were all sold out, so we got some more expensive ones further down along the mezzanine than all the rest. So J(5) and I just sat, enjoyed, and held hands throughout the first half, and when the intermission struck we snuck back to converse with everyone only to find Bon-Bon (who knows her musicals, believe me) talking with a random stranger about how the acoustics were not quite up to speed and the fleem-quabs were a bit spor-laqular, or something like that. J(5) and I just looked at each other and said, ‘well heck, we thought it was just great.’ So there you go, similar dispositions, too, yay!
Also, the Florida trip happened! I’ve officially ‘met the family’. Here’s a breakdown of some of the more intriguing events.
Wednesday: We flew out together. J(5) doesn’t have any more vacation time, so she had been working extra-hard to get all her work done and her hours in before we left, so by the time we were both seated in the plane, Wednesday morning, she was ready to just cuddle up on my left arm and fall asleep. And so she did! I, being the entertainment-minded traveler that I am, had picked up a couple of Game Boy Advance games to keep myself entertained during the flight. Both turned out to be great, fantastic fun, and neither required me to use my left shoulder, so J(5) was happy as…well…as J(5).
We met Mom Swanson, Grandma Swanson, and J(5)’s two nephews at the airport. We went home, briefly, before meeting J(5)’s sister at dinner. I will refer to J(5)’s sister from here on in as ‘Dork’, for reasons that should be apparent to anyone that has seen her new house. No, no I won’t. I’ll call her ‘Mommy’. Because though she may have a real name, it has been usurped by her two sons (the nephews) and now she is mommy. Anyway, we had some pizza, I did some talking, we went home and walked the dog (and the boys) and went outside to feed the fish and turtles in the canal behind the house. I also got to seem some pictures of hurricane damage. Nice.
Thursday: (We slept in a lot). Then we went out to a nice mall nearby the house. Mostly we walked around a lot, had some ice cream, and I drooled over books in the bookstore. And I tried on some Speedos, but I’m not quite that ‘in shape’ or that ‘serious a swimmer’ yet, so I passed. Went home, played games, did reading, played with boys, walked dog, fed fish, and chatted up various family members. If it sounds tedious, that’s because I’m typing it wrong. I like chatting with people and, oddly enough, I like feeding fish.
Friday: Discovery center! I still have a curious obsession with science museums. It can probably be traced back several years to when I was younger and…well…was totally obsessed with science museums. It was also and excuse to take the boys out for some entertainment. J(5) was quite nice to me and kept an eye on the children for the much of the time (children who are too young to be reading plaques and discovering the infinite strangeness of the universe…yet) so that I could check out all the really, really neat stuff. Like I said, she’s really nice to me. And it was a lot of fun! We hit up burger king afterwards (kids meals! Superman toys!) Played some skip-bo with Mom Swanson. Fun day.
Saturday: (We slept in a lot.) And then we woke up, went to Waffle House (yum) and then painted Mommy’s New house! Yeah, they got a new house just as we were coming to visit so we showed up and helped them get jump-started on their home improvement projects. J(5) and I replaced the door handles and deadbolts, which I’d never done before (J(5) did most of the work) and then we slapped primer on the kitchen, dining room, living room, and family room. And when I say we, I mean J(5), myself, mommy, and ‘W’, a friend of mommy who lives across the street. The boys had some friends come over, which was great because they were kept mostly entertained and mostly away from wet primer. Sure, household fixing doesn’t sound terribly interesting, but I had a great time, engaged in lots of lively banter, and primer-grafitti’d several rooms in Mommy’s house. I was not responsible for the ‘Mommy is a dork’ tag, but you can still see that one on the wall if you look close. Just another good reason for them to finish the painting, though. We were thanked profusely, returned home, and zonked out, hard, cuddling into dreamland. (How I love the cuddling!)
Sunday: Get-together BBQ! We all hitched up a bunch of food and wheeled it over to Mommys new hose where we fired up a grill, created some eatables, and I got to meet some more of the family and friends. I also spent a lot of time tearing it up in the backyard pool with the boys. Young boys like nothing more than big, strong men to toss them around in pools and be silly with them. So we got along ‘swimmingly’ (heh). Afterwords, I did fireworks! They’re illegal in Juneau, (and I think they’re illegal in LA, but I’m not so sure…) but totally on par in FLA, so we bought a huge pack and attempted to set fire to the driveway with pretty colors. (The boys were in charge of putting the fireworks down, and then turning and running out of the way.) Strangest moment: a frog got into some loose primer paint, somehow, and left froggy tracks all the way down the driveway.
Monday: I veged out a bit while J(5) went off and had some time with Mom Swanson, then I went out with them (I was explicitly invited!) to see Superman returns. Review: I was hoping for more super-action, but it was more of a drama, though a pretty good one at that. Don’t take young children. We saw the movie, then…(and I know I’m getting the timing wrong, but it happened *sometime*) we went out to a swap meet, and a MEATY one at that. Unfortunately, for all its interest, they weren’t selling too much quirkily random stuff, and so I didn’t pick anything up. It was fun to look around, though the humidity nearly killed me. We also got some delicious subs and then went out to Roadhouse for dinner. Good food.
Tusday: We left in the afternoon, and we finally got to meet ‘Daddy’, who had been (get this) in LA the whole time we were in Florida. (His work travels). Anyway, we got to sit around and chat, watch the shuttle launch, and have one last family ‘hurrah’ before J(5) and I packed our things and went home. I’d gotten her addicted to one of my games over there, but she let me use the GBA on the flight home, so long as I let her use my shoulder. Worked out great for everyone.
So there’s your update. Hope everyone is having fantastic times. I’ll be up in Alaska in a month for some wedding happy-times! Ciao!
-N
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