Kitanzi's Colloquium

Let's see.... I used that half hour certificate to get out of work early Friday and we went off to the belly dancing show at the Red Light Cafe. It didn't wind up starting until 9, so that made for an unexpected hour wait, but once it started it was GORGEOUS. I'm very glad we went, even if the chairs were torture devices. ACat had a great time putting his new camera (his birthday present) through its paces. The pictures came out pretty damn well overall, and he's proudly posted them. So, that ran a couple hours, we never did get more than chips and salsa and pita bread pizza for dinner, then we came home and fell over sideways on the bed to go unconscious.

Apparently I didn't sleep too well, made a few mistakes. I woke up about 6 or so with a rather nasty nightmare, got up for a half hour to putter and wipe my mental screens clean, then went back to bed for a couple hours more napping on and off. ACat says I apparently also woke him up at some point by thrashing around, but I don't even remember that. Well, it's a weekend - a little mental fuzziness is no real problem.

Anyhow, we eventualy woke up, got up, and puttered a bit. After the usual morning routine of showers and computers and such, we decided to go see Shrek 2. Excellent, excellent movie! It's at least as good as the first, and that's saying a lot in my opinion. (If you do see it, make sure to stay through the credits. There's a great extra bit shoehorned into the middle of them!) Stuffed on popcorn, we weren't really hungry for lunch so we came home and went swimming long enough to pick up a fair bit of sunburn. ACat had swiped at his shoulders with a sunscreen stick, and the result looks an awful lot like a cross between a stencil and a kid's fingerpaints. :) We worked up a good appetite with that and went off to Cheeburger Cheeburger for a very late lunch/slightly early dinner and stuffed ourselves. Overstuffed ourselves, in fact - by the time we got home, between the sun and the food we needed naps. I snoozed about an hour and got up to chat a bit with maedbh7 online, watch tv, replenish liquids and finish reading The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. (Excellent fantasy book by Patricia A McKillip, I strongly recommend it!) By the time ACat had slept for three hours, I figured I'd better haul him up and out of bed or he'd be finished with his night's sleep about one am, and completely screwed up! Now we're lazing around. He's reading some sharply funny and acute movie reviews from Salon to me, I'm catching up on LJ, we're indulging in some very good chocolate brownie ice cream.

Tomorrow, some minimal grocery shopping and household chores, the Harry Potter movie and more swimming, and ACat's wonderful fried catfish for dinner. A lovely, lazy weekend - I've solved the nagging, escalating headaches that have plagued me for the past couple months (Aspertame, apparently. I cut out all the diet soft drinks that had it, within 3 days all gone!), I'm pleasantly tired and well fed and generally feeling indulged and happy.

All is good.


(Not perfect, mind you - that would still require a teleporter! *sigh and hugs as appropriate*)

First, thanks you to the manymany people on (and off) LJ who really made my day yesterday by saying Happy Birthday to me. (And the ones who did it today, too!) I don't usually do it, because I just KNOW I'll forget someone and hurt their feelings, so I leave it out for everyone. But I really liked it.

I've been thinking about ups and downs of being 35, and it occurs to me that, compared to ten years ago, I am healthier, saner, happier, more stable on EVERY level, and all around much improved in my life. I like this. Here's to being able to say the same thing again in ten more!

Well, ACat and I have both been a little grumpy for the last day or so, and we aren't sure why. We were both short on sleep, but we've caught up on that as of last night at least. (His sleep schedule got fractured by having to go into work at 1 am Thursday night to do maintenance.) I got a nice long talk with maedbh7 last night which cheered me considerably, but ACat was tired and unsocial, so that was less help to him. We did have fun making plans for her planned visit here in April, though - we're all psyched about going to the Georgia Renfest, which we've never been to before. It sounds like quite a lot of fun, and we'd meant to go last year. The cats, on the other hand, are being more social and Jenna's taken to sleeping on the bed with us. Well, hanging out on the bed while we're trying to sleep, at least - she's a bit too active about it, wiggling and writhing and wanting to be petted, but she settles down and she's a very sweet kitty. Dayna's still hissing at her, but they're both out and about the apartment now during the day and Jenna seems to mostly ignore the hissing, so I suppose it's no matter. :)

Anyhow, this morning I managed to make ACat laugh a few times, called it an accomplishment, and actually hauled my ass out of the house and over to the exercise room and did about 25 minutes on an exercise bike, which is good - I was a little intimidated by the seriously exercising guys who were down there, but I did my time anyhow. I had planned on dragging him out of the house for a nice rambly walk, but it was raining last night and again this morning. I think that might have been part of the joint melancholy mood, but who knows. Anyhow, we're gradually perking up as the weather improves, and if we don't go walking today maybe we will tomorrow. In the meantime I'm having an old fashioned "cooking as mood therapy" weekend, and I have a spinach and cottage cheese pie in the oven now. It smells pretty good, and will make a tasty lunch. After, I'm virtuously getting the shopping out of the way and trying to keep it light since we're slightly tight on cash until pay day, but I am getting things to make a cheesecake and trying out a Chicken Parmesean recipe that ACat got from his sister. I like cooking, when I'm not doing it to scramble together dinner after work. Even then it can be enjoyable, but weekends are when I can consider what do I feel like doing rather than what can I throw together when I get home at quarter past eight so we can eat before nine.

See what marvelously exciting weekends we have? Next, taking out the trash....

http://www.livejournal.com/users/ladyjaida/283002.html?nc=24&style=mine

Just because I think everyone should have someone like this in their lives to tell stories about - and everyone should have someone in their lives who will tell those stories.

When I got home from work today, there was a valentine's day gift and card waiting on my desk for me. The gift was a silly computer game I'd been looking at, but the card made me cry a bit and hug ACat very hard.

( Trust ACat to find a Hallmark card to make me weepy )

This is a matter of curiosity, so I'll throw it out there.

When you are part of a couple do you find people assuming that if they tell one of you something, the other will know? Do they assume the other will NOT know unless they specifically say it's okay? Are there different default assumptions depending on the nature of the information? (ie, there's a birthday party next weekend at our place, vs personal information about relationships, for instance.) Does this change if the nature of your relationship changes? (ie, your boyfriend becomes your exboyfriend and current friend - do people still make the same assumptions of what's shared information and what's not?)

For gifts, is something handed over by one person usually (in your experience) assumed to be from that person, or from both? If it's sent through the mail and not specified, what's the common assumption, or do you find people try to find out in that case? If someone gives you a gift, is it assumed it's for your partner as well?

Does this change if you are part of a more complicated poly configuration?

I'm curious what people's assumptions and expectations and above all experiences are with this, and so I'm tossing it out there.

Well, another relationship ritual has been met and passed - and enjoyably, at that. ACat's mom has been meaning to come visit for the past several weekends but threatened snow kept making her reschedule - some of the trip is through a rather high mountain pass, plus it's a LONG car ride. She did make it down this weekend, though, and the funny thing is that I was less nervous about meeting his mom than I was about introducing him to mine - or my dad, for that matter. I think this actually says more about me and my family than it does anything else, but I digress.

She's a lot like her son - funny, intelligent, generous, perceptive, slightly acerbic, kind - and just like he described her, which is not surprising. I think I passed muster, though once again I'm running into the interesting phenomenon of being measured against his ex, and finding it's a REALLY SHORT YARDSTICK. *sigh*

Anyhow, we gave her her christmas present (a really neat fur pillow I had threatened to keep if she didn't make it this time), and took her to the Three Weird Sisters concert Friday night, which she seemed to like a lot. She must have enjoyed it, since she took home both their CD and Gwen's solo CD!

We also talked a lot, went out to eat a lot, and had quite a good time over all. I hoped I would get more funny ACat-as-a-kid stories out of it, but he seems to have already told them all on himself already! >:)It was fun hearing them from another perspective and a different story teller.

She took herself off to the mall Saturday morning, just before we found out about the Columbia disaster, and since I was finding singing to be some solace we kind took it back up and gave her a microconcert of a good variety of filk that afternoon. I never did get to feed her - she wasn't hungry when she got in Friday, and took us out to ever single meal thereafter before leaving after breakfast Sunday morning. Just as well that we'd already decided to relax the diet in anticipation of our trip to England.

So, I've done the ritual Meeting of the SO's Parents, and it went pretty well. I'm really glad - I like her! Next adventure - England the day after tomorrow?!?

Happy Thanksgiving Day, Turkey Day, or simply Thursday as appropriate to everyone. Mine was delicious and delightful, since autographedcat and I went around noon to celebrate with telynor and household, plus friends I hadn't seen in far too long. There was much food shopping, much cooking, much eating, much playing with small children, and much of what I LIKE about holidays as opposed to stress and irritation and a feeling of a wasted day. I really enjoyed it, though we left earlyish because we were both tired, especially the driver. It was a wonderful thing to be able to spend that holiday with people who are family, and it's an even more wonderful thing to be able to say that!

( How was the rest of the weekend? )