No Celery Please

Seriously, I have no idea.

Wedding band the third.

I had Friday off to make it a three day weekend.

Friday was the best day ever.   The best day in a long time.  Just…  the best.

Was it a wild and crazy time at the amusement park?  No.

Was it a fabulous thirill ride down amazing rapids? No.

It was just me and the SB.  We took the dog for a hot, muggy walk in the morning.  Went to lunch, hit the WalMart.  I took a nap.  Spent the balance of the day puttering around the house and whatnot.

Best.  Day.   Ever.

I was keen to try and repeat this lovliness on Saturday, to try and get just us again, but it was not to be.  You see… my family lives around here.  And somehow we got into the habit of going over there on the weekends.  And now it’s just this thing we do and there’s no way to get around it.

Now, I love my family.  I do.  But I sure would like to have my own life a bit.  And I don’t see that happening.  Because when you love people, you don’t want to hurt their feelings.  So, no matter that you want very much to spend the day alone, well, when someone wants to come along to the movies, well, sure… I guess that’s fine.

Moving right along, though.  Today.  We spent some time in the morning out and about with the SB’s family (a lovely group of folks we see much less than mine), then went to my folks for some hanging around.

We were doing some fairly successful hanging around when out of the blue, my sister’s ass-hat, just-got-out-of-jail, never-paid-the-child-support-even-when-he-wasn’t-in-jail, treated-her-and-the-kids-like-crap-even-when-they-WERE-together, ex-husband calls tosay he wants to see the kids and can he come over.

JEEZ!

Now, in my family, we deal with conflict like this.

.

.

.

Yes!  That’s right!  Pretend that nothing is wrong and eventually the conflict will go away!

No one is going to say anything like… “Hey, dude… you’re a lying ass and nobody likes you and you don’t deserve to see these kids that you’ve written ONE letter to in the last three years and that only because you were stuck in jail and no – you can’t come over.”  No, we are just not people who say things like that.

So… he was on his way over and the SB and I bolted like wildebeast running from a crocodile at a drinking hole.  Which is to say… Fast.  Because another great conflict avoidance technique is not being there when the ass-hat shows up.

Still, a rather disconcerting end to the day. 

If I lived in Seattle, I can only think I would not have to deal with this… and eveyday could be like Friday was.

Gah!

“Well I don’t know but I’ve been told, you never slow down, you never grow old.
I’m tired of screwin’ up, tired of goin’ down,
Tired of myself, tired of this town”

Mary Jane’s Last Dance

Tom Petty

Renn posted this last year and we have been using the catchphrase “Haaaahhht in Topeka” pretty much any time it’s even a little bit warm here.

Being as it’s gonna be 99 today… I thought I’d repost it for eveyone’s amusement.

So it appears I may be going to Dragon Con this year.

A friend of mine is sharing a room with another person and wants to split it again to save some bucks. I had expressed an interest in going, so she asked me.

Dragon Con’s one of those things I’ve always thought it would be cool to go see. Once, mind you… I am not sure I’d want to make it an annual pilgrimage or anything.

But, it’s just the sort of event that the SB would hate. He’s not into Sci Fi. He’s not into freakazoids that think they are actually living in their own little sci fi worlds. He’s not into crowds (neither am I, but some are more tolerable than others). So if I ever want to attend this thing, it’ll have to be just this kind of situation. And Lo and Behold – here it is.

I will miss the SB… we usually do things together. But I know he would have a miserable time if I ever tried to drag him to something like this, and my friend lives across the country now, and I hardly ever get to see her, so it’ll be nice to have some time with her.

Plus, a bunch of my favorite Sci Fi Authors will be there, and it would be cool to meet them. There’ll be some famous actors too… but the actors usually charge money to meet them, the authors tend to be free Think I’ll stick to trying to talk to some sci-fi authors.

This is not set in stone yet… but it’s likely.

How exciting! I need a costume!

Let me start out by saying that although I did attend many a concert during my teen years… I have sort of grown curmudgeonly as I have aged and now the very thought of going to a rock and roll concert with all thetraffic and the people and the loud… well, let’s just say I find it unappealing and leave it at that.

BUT!

There are a few acts that can cause me to dare to venture into that breach.

And so I found that free tickets combined with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was enough to enduce me to brave the wilds of my local amphitheater, stay out much later than usual, and, all in all, put aside my general cloak of fuddy-duddiness and have a good time.

Oh.  My.  God.

Both Tom Petty AND his Heartbreakers.  They rocked.

I have never heard a band sound that good in an amphitheater… possily because, lets face it, the bands of my teen years: Poison, Motley Crue, Iron Maiden… well, I still have soft spots for them, but they aren’t exactly what you call, erm, musicians.

Which, I might say, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ARE.  They play their instruments.  They know HOW to play their instruments. They played many a song that the whole audience was able to sing along to and just generally rocked.

OK, we still left half-way through.  It was god-awful loud, and late, and we couldn’t bear the thought of the traffic if we waited for the crowd to let out.

Note:  If I had actually paid for those ridiculously expensive tickets, we would have stayed to the bitter end, you better believe it!

So… there’s me, good on concerts for another five years, at least, but ever so glad we went.

3:30 pm to 5:00 pm on Friday afternoon is the longest time period know to man.

Read yet another story in the “health news” today about a drug producing wonderful weight loss results.

Oh, yeah… um, when combined with a restricted calorie diet and daily exercise.

Um… drug industry? I can DIET AND EXERCISE on my own, hello? I don’t think you should be allowed to claim credit for your weight loss drug if you are also making me eat less and exercise more.

I’m just saying.