Knishmas Party!

My Man and I threw a party this past Saturday. A very fun party. It took DAYS to throw together, and we were taking it apart well into the night and today.

I am sooooo tired from the weekend. It was incredibly busy and high energy, save for today, and it's draining on a person.

So, instead of recapping...here's my pictures from the event! I only just got them resized and uploaded.

Nightmare Before Knishmas, 2007!

Note: Those photos don't include the ones a friend of ours took of the destruction of the gingerbread houses....we basically put them up to a load bearing test. :D

Note 2: I gave My Man his holiday gift after everyone left. It was a photo book of all of our events from the past year, and when I say "photo book"...I mean I found a program for putting together a book, and then you order it and it comes to you as an actual bound book with the photos all printed in it. He really liked it. :)

Thoughts on a friend

Went to the opera last night with My Man....and aside from yesterday being one of those days (meaning our cart disappeared at Target, horrible crowded at dinner, terrible parking in San Jose), it was a fairly nice time. The singers were good, and my opera friend was extremely animated and a joy to watch on stage.

However, after the show we went to Il Fornaio with her and some other performers from the opera, which is where she said she needed to call a friend, that I wasn't to tell any embarassing/gossipy stories from high school....and then proceeded to disappear. For about 20 to 30 minutes. Naturally, I felt completely ditched by her. Even her friends from the show leaned over at one point and said something along the lines of "apparently the dirt you have on her is that she ignores her friends" and they felt bad for us.

Found out afterwards that she ran into one of the donors for the opera....which is apparently a huge thing, because if you get the donors to favor you they'll fund you in more shows. The opera folk then understood the networking she had to do and brushed off the disappearance.

I guess I can understand it too. It's just.....I've already played second fiddle, or lower, to someone's career before with my ex (and I'm so glad I'm out of that relationship, let me tell you...feeling like an afterthought or a burden sucks ass). I just never thought I'd have to go through that with one of my friends. And as much as I've commented about her diva personality, her occasional self-centered-ness, with another friend of our's....it just really hurt, moreso than with my ex actually. Even when I commented that I've come to expect that sort of treatment from her, it doesn't make it easier on me. It's so frustrating, and I don't know if I'm over reacting or not, but it just....really upsets me when someone who has dubbed me one of her best friends (even with the clarifier of "from high school") seems to write off my company like that.

::sighs, wipes eyes::

Anyway. At least there was My Man to help me regain some of the feeling of being loved after that.

In other news....My Man gave me a key to his condo. :)

Dinner last night with My Man

Menu:
Rosemary + Garlic lamb chops
Green beans and red potatoes sautee'd in the same flavors
Spinach salad
Chocolate Molten Lava Cakes for dessert

Ambiance:
Instead of eating at the table, I set up a velour blanket in front of the fireplace, with a fire going and some tea candles lit, which is where we had dinner while soft jazz was playing on the CD player -- UTTERLY romantic when My Man started improvising love songs to the music.

The dogs were, obviously, outside...but the cat was welcome due to being quiet and affectionate without pushing her way into our plates.

Successful? Very much so! It was a very nice evening, and nothing burned or was undercooked. Overall, I'm thrilled with how the evening went (aside from the dogs having gotten pushy and loud on trying to get my attention to come back in).

What's Cooking?

I am! Well, I will be. My parents are going out of town this weekend (for my aunt's funeral...I'm taking care of the pets), and while they're away I'm going to make dinner for My Man (formally known as "The Boy"). It's taken me the better part of a day to come up with a menu, but I'm fairly proud of it!

Rosemary & Garlic lamb chops (think I might try to find boneless)
Red potatoes and green beans cooked in the same flavors
Salad (thinking Spinach salad)

And for dessert, I'm going to make Chocolate Molten Cakes.

At least, that's the plan. Hopefully, it won't turn into giving up and ordering in. It's my first grown up dinner I'll plan and make all on my own. I don't know how people plan meals weeks in advance.

I also just ordered the very special super secret gift for My Man. I'd tell you all what it is, but in case he's poking around here as well, I don't want to give away the surprise. But I'll make sure to go into detail after it's given, and post pictures.

Halloween and Things!

Sorry for delays -- I've been busy with various things, including preparing for Halloween (my next project is preparing for a party The Boy and I will be throwing in December).

First off, a few weeks ago I went and worked the final Renaissance Faire in the season up in Folsom (near Sacramento) with The Boy. Had a lot of fun there, and located a few photos that others have taken and put them all here.

For Halloween, we went to the DNA Lounge in San Francisco in our costumes. To see what we were, check out my album of Halloween photos!

And finally, this past weekend we went to a Ranch in Napa Valley that my family is members of for the weekend! We spent Saturday at the ranch relaxing, riding horses, and taking a hike. On Sunday, we left and went for a much more strenuous hike in a places called "Cold Creek Canyon," I believe. Today, my thighs are kiiiiiilling me. So much pain to go up and down stairs, but the hike was gorgeous. Once again, I have pictures! After the hike, we grabbed dinner with some friends and headed home for the 2 hour drive.

Tonight, there's a meeting with the Shoestring Theater Company's board of directors to pick next summer's show. Hopefully it'll be the one I really want!

Hope everyone reading this is well and good. Sorry I've been so sporadic with updating.

P.S. Working on a super secret, but hopefully super special gift for The Boy as a combined holiday/anniversary gift. You know, it's about 1 year exactly since our first date...time has flown!

Tomales Bay Pictures

Here's an album full of pictures taken from the kayaking trip. Look away!

http://picasaweb.google.com/caity.andrews/KayakingTripTomalesBay

Think I'll go for a walk outside, now...

The Boy left work early today, since it was his last day at HP (Yay for starting a new job! He's excited)....so he gave me a call at around 2:30 to see if I wanted to go for a hike. Of COURSE I did! I was feeling so restless yesterday that it was about to drive me crazy, so it was wonderful to get out and get my restless legs moving. We went up to Almaden Quicksilver and tromped around there for awhile, all the way to where the mining was. We even went through this little deer path thing between some bushes into this "fairy land" area....it was all clear and there were trees all around it. You could see single strands of spider webs glistening in the sunlight that came through the trees, and you could tell no one had really walked around in there. It was so peaceful! I wish there hadn't been so much poison oak around there so we could've stuck around.

Well, we got to the top-area (as far as we were going to go, in order to beat the sun back) and had our sandwiches for a little picnic hanging out on the ground. It was very nice, and we turned around once we were done to head back.

So, speaking of poison oak, we brushed against some of it while climbing around on rocks and scurrying down areas that weren't quite a trail....so when we got back, we had to Tecnu ourselves up before showering. I love all of the Then there was much flop-cuddling and tea sipping.

All in all, an extremely calming afternoon/evening. My legs are definitely feeling it -- but also REALLY needed it. I feel great. LOVE all of the outdoorsy stuff.

Animals we saw:
Pheasants! They took off from the brush next to us.
A cute little lizard that was thin and long -- I think more tail than body
Lots of tenny yellow birds
A few dear near the end -- I saw a buck while we were driving out of the area

Into The Blue

So, on Friday The Boy and I left for a weekend long kayaking trip in Tamales Bay. We left and met up with four other folk Friday evening at a really cute little hostel (Pt. Reyes Hostel) -- which, although it was cute, the beds were too hard for me and I couldn't sleep too well. Anyway, the hostel is out in the middle of nowhere and is right where there's some great hiking. On our way up, we passed really close by some tule elk (which were also all around our campsite later on), and after we got there we learned how to play the game "Citadels."

Saturday, we pick up our permits, 4 dozen oysters, then got our kayaks and went off to paddle around in the bay to our campsite -- and went through a huge grouping of jelly fish! So cool. Anyway, first we stopped off at an abandoned artist colony where there was a rope swing to play around and explore. It was really cool to look around in the abandoned houses and to see what all was still there -- I actually found a letter in one of the houses from 1995, so they've been abandoned for at least 12 years -- and it was interesting to see how much the plantlife took over the houses in just that amount of time. One of the houses had these gorgeous vines hanging through the roof into an upstairs room (later found out to be poison oak, to the dismay of others).

Eventually, we got to our beach at low tide and hauled the kayaks up to the high tide point. With the space the fire circle already made there took up, there was just enough space for our four tents when the tide came up to the highest point. We sat around for a bit enjoying the wine that was brought before going on a hike, which was a little challenging at first due to the wine, but it got easier. We found a big group of tule elk and sat on a hill to watch them wander around and call out to each other. They sounded amazingly cool.

Dinner on Saturday was shrimp salad, olive bread, and raw oysters. Yes, I tried an oyster....but it was hard getting past the idea that it is (A) alive when you crack it open, and (B) possibly still alive when you swallow it. It was extremely salty, but that probably was partly due to the point that I tipped most of the liquids out -- which included the lemon juice. After dinner, we sat around and sang songs until around 10:30 or 11:00 at night, when we all decided to crash. Before going to bed, though, I pointed out the bioluminescence in the bay at the water's edge to a few folk. I was apparently the one person who had seen it before (thank you Catalina trip in 8th grade) and when I heard that the bay was bioluminescent, I made a point to remember to poke around at the water with a stick. It caused the plankton to light up and trail the stick like magic sparks. It's soooo purty.

Sunday, everyone stayed in the tents for awhile before getting out to have breakfast at the fire circle. We put off the inevitable of putting back on our wet suits (I would just like to say "ICK!" at this point), but eventually had to as we had to get going. We got our stuff together and into the kayaks -- which was thankfully when the tide was coming back in, so we didn't have to drag them so far -- and cast off into the bay again. We diddled around in the water for a long time, stopping for lunch at one point, and eventually got back to the kayak rental place at 2 or so in the afternoon. It felt reeeeally good to get out of the wetsuit and into the car.

We stopped in Pt. Reyes Station at a bakery -- chai and a peanut butter blondie tasted heavenly at that time -- and hung out as a group one last time before parting ways. The Boy and I hung around the town a bit -- including taking a nap in a grassy area -- before heading home. First thing we did when we got back was slather ourselves in Technu to (hopefully) prevent any poison oak reactions, and took a shower. Oh my GOD that shower was freakin' awesome. I felt soooo good afterwards, even if my shoulders were killing me at the time. Dinner was at Fresh Choice, then we rented the movie Neverwas to watch back at home. VERY nice movie, and I reccomend it.

My shoulders still hurt and want a massage like woah, but I'm VERY happy with the outing. I had a lot of fun and look forward to more adventures.

Wow. Long time no update.

Sorry! I got so busy with the show and everything else that I sorta...blanked on this site. Um, I'll update with bullet points here, I guess.

- Lark Camp -
Lark Camp website
Over all, had a very good time, though parts were overwhelming and hard, but I'm all the better for it I bet. And definitely had the absolute BEST birthday ever while there. The hard/overwhelming stuff were mostly my own emotional issues with feeling like I'd been "ditched" whenever The Boy went off to play really late at night and I had to go to bed due to working the coffee shop the next morning and having to get up. It all got talked out, though, so we're good. :)

- Camping -
I went camping with The Boy and his parents for a few days a while ago, a week or so before school started. It was a lot of fun, and fairly relaxing. We stayed at a little camp area called "Little Basin" -- right next to Big Basin -- that is currently owned by HP (where The Boy works for now -- he's changing jobs), so only employees and guests of them are the only ones who stay there. The best part? We were there during the meteor shower! The Boy and I stayed out late on a dock and watched the meteors. It was great. There were a few that went across the whole sky and left long trails of star dust. Beautiful.

- School and Jobs -
I'm graduating next spring. Lots of papers to write this semester. Yeep. And The Boy is leaving his job at HP to go work at Zvents. It's a great site for looking up events. Try it out! Tell your friends! Pimp the start-up that my man's going to be working for.

- Summer Musical: Children of Eden -
The show's over, and I'm still sad about it. I'll post a link to a photo album once I have one made up. I just really miss all of the people, from the six year olds throwing themselves at me for hugs to the 62 year olds doing the same thing, and it hasn't even been a full week since the show ended. Le sigh.

- Upcoming Events -
- Weekend long Kayak trip this weekend
- Cast party for Children of Eden (date not set yet)
- Possible rock climbing outing with The Boy, practicing on a wall of course, since I'm a n00b.
- White Water Rafting is possible sometime, but hopefully it won't be too cold when it's decided.
- Renaissance Faire opens this weekend, will have to check that out at least once.


Um, I guess that's all for now. Is anyone still checking this site? :P

Who would do that?

What type of boyfriend runs you a hot steamy bath when you've been cold and shivery all evening, leaves you yummy smelling shampoo and soap, lights the room only with candles, and plays Enya music while you soak and warm up? And then makes you tea and lets you have the soft velour robe when you get out?

...Only the best kind, of course.

So head over heels, here...♥ ♥ ♥

Valhalla Renaissance Faire -- 2 weekends, 1 update!

Weekend the first:
I got to roll around in the dirt!!

Okay, so there was more to Valhalla than that, but it was still a highlight. Best moments include:

- Getting to meet new people who I totally clicked with.
- Peeking out of my shy-shell in a few of the bits that I was involved in.
- The beggar in the streets of the faire just made me smile. Adorable like a filthy little puppy, he was!
- Spitting contests with cherry pits. I'm not very good, but I participated!
- Balancing a cabbage on my head while walking through the faire.
- Kick the cabbage! Thankfully, it wasn't on my head. ;)
- Singing in the streets
- Getting to be pulled through and learn some dances with the Merrie Pryanksters....SO much fun. I want to learn all of them!
- Taking a moment to see Lake Tahoe -- which I'd never ever seen before -- and I could see Nevada from the shore!
- The stars at night were GORGEOUS.
- Sitting at the campfire and singing
- And, of course, getting to spend the whole weekend in the wonderfully fun setting with my favorite fella.

Granted, I did have a moment where I felt a little overwhelmed and had to hide at camp for a minute. And I was still only peeking out of my shy shell, spent a lot of time observing.

Weekend the second:
So, aside from the expected rolling in the dirt, here's a sum-up of what happened this weekend.

1) BEARS. There were apparently like, 6 bears (including a mama and two cubs) that decided to start wandering through the faire and campsites at night. I never saw one, but I had seen the security folk walking around through the camps with tranquilizer guns and flashlights whenever they heard reports of one near by. I also heard other camps make lots and lots of noise whenever there was one that came near by. And apparently, one of them got into the food booths and knocked over the fry vat because the oil smelled yummy. Who knew bears liked fried onion!

2) The Boy and I were pretty much it for the St. Helenas peasant guild, so mostly it was chilling out and enjoying the faire, rather than gigging.

3) Boba Fett showed up at a campfire during the after hours party and sang "I wanna be a cowboy" before waltzing along with "Waltzing with Bears." Know who was under that costume? The beggar! I believe I mentioned him last time as one of my favorite bits of faire atmosphere.

4) I learned how to use a drop spindle to spin yarn out of wool! Hopefully I can get one soon and can do that while sitting around at faire either on my own or with The Boy while singing.

5) I got attacked by a sign. ::rubs head:: I was sitting with The Boy while he was singing, with my eyes closed to enjoy the music without distraction, when a huge gust of wind came and knocked over a large sign that was next to us. The Boy stuck up his arm to block it, but the corner still managed to smack into my head and startled the hell out of me -- it could've been a LOT worse, so many thanks to my hero for playing defense! Anyway, because I yelled and started to tear up -- because damn, it did hurt and startle me -- people kept coming over going "OMGOMGOMG ARE YOU OAKY??" and alerting the EMT people on site.....ugh. It just embarassed me, since it was just a little lump and red mark. It took what felt like 5 minutes (an eternity if you're incredibly embarassed and just getting more upset by the embarassment) to get people to let it be and go away. Anyway, I'm fine. Still a bit red and tender on my noggin, but fine.

All in all, a very good weekend still! I really have enjoyed this experience and hope soooo much to continue doing this sort of thing. Oh, and those new boots I got last week worked SO much better for my poor feetsies.

Photos!
Here ya go, take a look at my weekend! No, the color coordinating between The Boy and I was not planned. More of my favorite pictures (ganked from a site with over 1300 from the first weekend) can be found in this photo gallery of mine: Valhalla Faire 2007

General Updating...Again

Let's see...

Great America:
A bunch of my friends from high school, a new girlfriend, myself and The Boy all went to Great America on Sunday, May 27th. This was GREAT fun, because I hadn't seen some of them in a long time, or I hadn't been able to hang out with them due to scheduling conflicts. Even though Great America's gotten cheesy and they aren't even trying to make their line waits interesting with their atmosphere. Still, the rides were fun and everyone enjoyed interacting with everyone else. I really like the new girlfriend, and The Boy loves my friends, and says I can keep them. :P

Boy's Birthday (May 28):
Here's what The Boy got for his birthday from me (which I spent all day Saturday putting together):

A basket wrapped in celophane and tied with a blue ribbon. In the basket was a box of blackberry jasmine tea, which he'll hopefully really like (since he's a tea drinker), and a bunch of bagels. HOME MADE BAGELS. And let me tell you, those bagels were a pain in the butt to make, but they're very yummy. Perhaps partially because they were made with love. ;)

So, I made a batch of cinnamon raisin bagels for him, which came out WONDERFULLY. The second batch was a combo of onion and poppyseed, but unfortunately the onion ones were undercooked, and the poppyseed ones came out very small. Probably because the recipe didn't have any sugar in it -- which yeast apparently needs to interact with in order to rise properly.

Well, despite the fact that he didn't notice the basket right off so that we ended up having some very yummy apple pancakes for breakfast, he did try one and apparently agrees that they came out wonderfully.

Hurrah for a thoughtful and appreciated gift. I'm glad he likes 'em. <3

This Weekend:
I'll be going to Valhalla up at South Lake Tahoe for a Renaissance Faire. The Boy got me into one of the guilds, and it's my first time on the "other side," as it were. I'm really looking forward to it! We'll be leaving this afternoon, picking up some other riders, and then off we go. Hopefully, it'll be lots and lots of fun, so I'll enjoy going back NEXT weekend as well.

I'm also baking cookies to bring and share with people, hopefully I'll get lots of new friends. Though there's also people from Friday Night Waltz who will be there, too. Speaking of which! There's my timer. Gotta go move cookies around!

Is The Kitola still a coward?
Yes. Yes I am. Trying to get up the guts to fix that, though.

A Crappy Day Made MUCH Better

So. Statistics final. Longest, most grueling, and probably most futile 2 and a half hours of my educational career. It was 8 questions long (some had three parts), and it took Two. And. A. Half. Hours. I was getting so frustrated that I ended up crying. By about 5:20 I was so upset that I essentially said "Okay, I can't do this anymore" and went to turn it in. I was the second to last person there, I kept dropping things as I tried to get everything together, cursing only slightly under my breath the whole time. I ran the four blocks to the parking garage my car was in, drove home as quickly as I could (and I'll tell ya, I was so ticked that I was screaming at other drivers while I was in my car...at least I realized I needed to calm down and did my best to do so.) Got home - where thankfully no one else was - and slammed things around. Stole a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie, and made myself take a shower to calm down.

After the shower, I went over to The Boy's, and we headed off to Felton to see a band that someone he knew from high school was in. The band was called Hot Buttered Rum, and they played some really amazing bluegrass/jam music. It was SO MUCH FUN. The energy, the music, the dancing -- especially some of the slower swoon-inducing dancing -- totally lifted my mood out of the gutter it was in to the point where I felt like my bouncy self again.

Okay, I'm a coward

Yes, certain topics make me tear up for no readily apparent reason. Yes, I've had difficulty communicating with people about various things -- such as what I want or what's bothering me -- for as long as I can remember (even since preschool).

...Despite all that, I think I'm going to attempt to swallow my fear and tell The Boy how I feel next weekend. It'll be really hard....my biggest fear is that it'll come out wrong, or that it won't be received as well as hoped. That's pretty much what's been keeping me from saying things outloud -- knowing that, while things won't go forward as well if I keep my mouth shut....opening it could make things a lot more difficult.

Still. I'm going to try...because there's always the possibility that things might even get better. Besides, I have a week to get my head ready to do so....so that should make it a bit easier, right?

Christ, I'm already nervous...

A sure fire way to sweep The Kitola off of her feet

Waltzing is good. Singing is good. But waltzing while being serenaded to? Amazing. Just wow. Love it.

Life is so very good.

Well...that was an adventure!

First and foremost, it seems that The Boy's grandma is doing okay. His parents are coming back up tomorrow.

Let's see....well, my weekend started with discovering that my best friend from high school is engaged. Then, a few days later, I discovered that my OTHER gal pal from high school is engaged. I get the privilege of telling our mutal friend B-Bear -- as long as I bring a camera along to record his reaction.

I did go to FNW on Friday, but it was extremely crowded and I was kinda in an "off" mood for some reason, and ended up heading home after the second set of music. Got called by The Boy and invited to head over after I picked up my stuff, so of COURSE I did.

Saturday was.....eventful, to say the least! We got together with three of The Boy's friends and went for a veeery long hike in Pacifica. It was gorgeous out, and the trail was veeery pretty. It went along what used to be Highway 1, and occasionally tou saw abandoned cars that were totally rusted out. The top part, though, was such a pain (literally!) to get to. It was so steep that my asthma was acting up so bad that I kept getting lightheaded and dizzy by the time I'd -finally- get to the top. The Boy was super sweet and would fall back to keep me company or wait for me to catch up.

After the hike, we went down to the beach nearby to goof around (I'd gotten a "hot spot" on my foot from my boot rubbing on it funny...ow. So no barefoot in the sand for me). The Boy decided that he had to dig near the base of a small sand wall. He ended up digging a really decent sized hole with some of us helping out by building retaining walls or tugging away the endges if they looked like they were going to fall in a bit. Well, once he started to dig into the sand bank.....that's when it got exciting. The wall of sand fell down on top of him and covered him past his nose, and I swear, my heart stopped. I was TERRIFIED. I pulled off his hat and started to pull sand away from his face while some of his friends started digging him out. I tried to help, but was kinda pushed back whenever I was attempting to, and wasn't strong enough to help pull him out. It took a long time to pull him out....but he came out none the worse for wear, aside from being covered in sand -- THANK GOD. I laugh about the mental picture now, but it scared the hell out of me.

After the near-death-experience, we all grabbed food and went to see the movie "Hot Fuzz." Extremely silly movie, so go see it if you liked "Shaun of the Dead." It was a long exhausting day, full of adrenaline, and many of us left sunburned -- particularly The Boy and I.

Today (Sunday) was a lot calmer, but still much fun. We went out and looked at some interesting homes for sale in Los Gatos hills....one of them was gigantic and GORGEOUS (as well as way too expensive), one was cheaper but....oddly built (seriously, the bathroom was tiny, had a huge window behind the toilet, a shower next to the window, and on the other side of the room was the washer/dryer), and the third one had a lot of charm! Favorite things: Window enclosed eating nook, a room with a big ol' stone fireplace, and a room that was two levels with a "stage" like area about 4 feet off the ground. Oh, and the woods? GORGEOUS. A pain in the butt to get to, mind you, due to windy narrow roads, but it was sooo pretty out there.

Afterwards, we went to a park to listen to local folk music players....play music. We ended up staying out there for about an hour and a half, and it was very relaxing. Grabbed some Chinese food for dinner, then collapsed back at home for a movie.

All in all, a very good weekend. I love my weekends with my favorite Boy. <3 This Tuesday, we have tickets to go see "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," which were gotten for us by our whistle player friend who works crew for these plays. Really looking forward to it!

Boy, when it rains it pours..

Got a call from The Boy today. His grandma (the one who lives in Texas) got into a real bad car accident today. Poor Boy....I sounded so upset that I even started to get tearful, despite having never met the woman.

I told him to call me anytime, and if he ever needs company that I'll head over at the drop of a hat, but I really want to do something more for him. I just don't know what.

Update from when originally posted:
The Boy just called and told me that grandma is out of surgery and in stable condition. Very good news. Hopefully, she'll pull through and have many more years with her family.

Another quiet -- though GORGEOUS -- weekend

So, as I mentioned in the comments on the last post, The Boy's grandfather passed away on Sunday morning while The Boy was still down in L.A. He took it kinda hard, since he'd just seen him the previous day, so when he came back from L.A. I kept him company for the evening. Spent a lot of time walking, talking, and he showed me a bunch of the pictures he collected -- as well as a collection of cufflinks he inherited from his grandfather. There were some fabulous things there, including a tuxedo set of onyx cufflinks. He says he's going to wear them the next time he uses the tux.

Tuesday, my parents and I had The Boy over for dinner at our house -- just the four of us. It was a super nice evening, and my parents really enjoy having him over. :) Yayness.

Wednesday marked the 1 year anniversary of Irish Dancing at a local pub I go to, so they had set up a dinner beforehand for anyone who wanted to attend. One of the other dancers kept refilling The Boy's hard cider before it emptied, so I took the opportunity to help him finish it off. We both got a bit tipsy from it, but it wore off (or was sweated out?) by the time the dancing was done. Actually, on Wednesdays the pub has Karaoke after the Irish dancing, and they were playing disco music at the time. Well, I've learned Hustle dancing, and have sorta been teaching The Boy how to do it, so we actually stuck around about a half hour longer dancing to the disco music. It's so fun and high energy! Love it.

Thursday, The Boy had free tickets to the opening of a new movie theater -- given to him by HP -- so we, of course, took advantage of them. We went and saw The Astronaut Farmer....it was such a nice movie! Very family friendly, and it had a warm and fuzzy feel to it. Great movie, though I was a little concerned for The Boy's sake when it got to a point where grandpa (in the movie) died and one of the grandkids found him. I think he was okay with it, but we ended up skipping out on the Celtic Music for the night and just went back to hang out at his place. I took a detour by way of my house, though, to pick up some chocolate chip cookies I'd made for him to take to L.A. and share with his family on the weekend.

Yesterday was gooooorgeous out, and I went for a bike ride through downtown to a park to sit and read. Finished my book by around noon, so I called my mom to see if she wanted to get lunch, and invited The Boy along as well...since he was taking the day off to get some things done, and everyone needs to eat lunch. We went to a nearby sushi place and got to sit in one of the booths where you take your shoes off before entering. It was really comfortable, and the sushi was very yum-tastic. Aside from that, my Friday was uneventful. Went to downtown Mountain View with my parents for dinner (found out later that The Boy and his parents were ALSO in downtown Mountain View for dinner, at the same time), then to Palo Alto for gelato and to see my singer-friend perform.

This morning, The Boy headed back to L.A. with his family to handle the estate and attend the funeral which'll be tomorrow. They'll be coming back on Monday.

It's another beautious day out. Maybe I'll bike to the bicycle store to get some actual bike shorts (the padded kind, so I don't feel like I bruise delicate areas due to the seat on my bike).

A Quiet Weekend

The Boy is down in L.A. this weekend, to record his grandpa's oral history. See, his grandpa has inoperable cancer in his neck, and The Boy wanted to get his history down before it's too late. He's been scanning in photos and pictures of family objects so that, with his interviewing that he's going to get done, he will be able to put together a DVD so that all members of the family will have access to the important pictures and stories -- instead of having them all split up among the different members. It's a GREAT idea and I totally support it.

Besides, it allows me some time to get much needed work done on my school papers. I've got one due on Monday (finished it), one a week from Monday (started it), and one a week from Wednesday. Fwoof! Guess I ought to get back to work.

This weekend will consist of Friday Night Waltz tonight, and lots of paper writing...so that I can go play NEXT weekend when The Boy is back in town. :)

Here's a couple of pictures from the anniversary party we went to last week.

Biking in the rain....? Sure, why not!

First off, here's a picture of those lovely "Just Because" flowers I got. I feel all fluttery every time I look at them.



And I just had this conversation on IM with my sister-in-law...
[05:08] Her: any special reason?
[05:08] Me: Well
[05:08] Me: They were pretty.
[05:08] Me: And Jeremy felt like getting me flowers.
[05:08] Me: Just Because.
[05:09] Her: Keep This Man!
[05:09] Me: I shall do my best!

And trust me, I shall.

- Saw a pirate show...thing...at SJSU with The Boy and mah buddy B-Bear on Friday Night by a dance group called "Company One." What they do is take songs from other musicals and then write a completely different show around them. It was such a cute and silly thing, and had some of my favorite songs from musicals (like "Creation of Man" from The Scarlet Pimpernel and "Reviewing the Situation" from Oliver!). Much fun was had by all. Oh, and the Askew Grill over by campus is soooooo good. Mmm.

- Went on a 14 mile (round trip) bike ride yesterday down to Los Gatos and back. It was poooouring rain, but it was still so fun! Especially since we stopped in downtown Los Gatos for Chai Lattes. That was the best soy chai I've ever had! Oh, and I got to use my brand new bike and I didn't get too worn out by it. Though I can still feel where the seat was hurting me near the end.

- Baked some dark chocolate espresso bean cookies. SO good.

- Went to a VERY interesting event last night, too. The Boy's manager had her 10th year anniversary with her husband. There was Indian Food (Which I'd never had before...yummy, but boy it sits with you), a belly dancer, about a million (or 30, hard to tell sometimes) kids running around like mad, dancing (my favorite part!), and lots of fun!

- This morning, The Boy went for a run so I cleaned up his place a bit and then came home to do some term paper work. May be going back tonight to watch a movie, but don't know yet.

All in all, a very good few days. I'm soooo happy.

Dawww..... <3

"Just Because" flowers are the BEST kind of flowers.

My Interesting Life

I had such an interesting weekend! Sadly, I don't have a great amount of time to type up everything, so I'll summarize.

On Saturday, The Boy and I drove up to the house of one of his friends up off of the Russian River for an event dubbed "The Bunny Burn." Apparently, this woman and her family/friends have been holding this event for 10 years, where they would build a big ol' bunny effigy filled with paper and fireworks, a gianormous bonfire, and then burn it all up while the gathered company dances and sings animal songs while wearing masks. That part was exactly as awesome as you can picture it being.

The weather was kinda grey and foggy when we got there, and it had rained before we got there, but it was still really pretty there. We were the first folk there, so actually we got put to work and helped clean and set up for the event. I wanted to help with the harder labor, but my ankle was still healing so that I couldn't be quite as useful as I'd have liked to be. My task was pretty much keeping The Boy company while clearing the yard, helping him build the bonfire so that it didn't collapse in on itself, and staple-gunning bunny heads to walls. Don't worry, they were PAPER bunny heads. ;-)

This year's bunny was pretty much sewn together fabric that was stuffed with paper and fireworks, so it went up REALLY quick once it caught fire....but the actual bonfire stayed up and lasted a good long time. There was much fun down there on the beach with glowsticks, singing, dancing, and burning. Once that fire died out, we moved up from the beach to the yard and continued visiting and made s'mores. Mmmmms'mores. And once we were all tuckered out, we climbed into our tent down by the beach for sleep.

Whew.

Sunday morning, we were up at about 8 or so. The Boy took one of the kayaks up the river into the "downtown" area, but I wasn't quite awake enough to be up to it, so I stuck around on the beach to do some exploring, went up to the house and grabbed a nice hot soy chai latte, and settled down to look at the prettiness back down at the river. I got divebombed by a hummingbird a bunch of times (it swooped about 10 times, I think), saw a huge turkey vulture across the river, AND! And I saw a river otter swimming around. That was way cool.

Around 1:30, we headed back here to get cleaned up, grab a catnap, and scurry off to my parentals for Easter dinner with my brother and his wife, my sister, my niece, her new boy-toy, and my mom's friend's family. There was much joyous chatting, joking, teasing, eating, and general good times had by all.

I'm vera tired, have an urge to exercise while simultaneously wanting to just snuggle up and watch a movie. But, I have to flee now and get a bikerack and the junk-bike off of my car before leaving for school. Hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend! Oh yeah, and happy-belated-Zombie-Jesus-Day!

A very nice evening

Okay, so I had nothing to worry about. The Boy's parents are sweet and a bit entertaining to watch them interact with him and each oter. The Passover part of the evening -- which is, what I think, I was worrying about moreso than meeting the parentals officially -- was done in a way so that I didn't feel too left out. Yeah, I couldn't read/sing the Hebrew, but everything was also explained to me, along with what the traditions meant. The Boy says that it was probably a good thing, since the meal is typically used to teach the youngest members of the family about the whole fleeing from Egypt and plagues and whatnot....so they got to actually re-learn how to explain everything to someone who had a very small clue about the whole thing!

So, yes. That was good, and I think it went well. Even though they did see that yes, I actually do enjoy and encourage The Boy's puns...as he put it, "Yeah, they noticed that. Much to their shagrin." I can't help it that he makes me giggle! One more thing that seems like a good sign to his parentals liking me, his dad gave me a hug when I showed up, and his mom gave me one when I left. Hurrah for hugs!

In Other News!
Can't seem to have a post without one of these sections, eh? :P Anyway, just putting this hear to mention that I have a new bike -- which is good, so I'll be able to start learning trails and stuff around here. I'll get some pictures of it later on.

I also have new glasses! Okay, my eyesight isn't that bad (20/25) but the fuzziness on signs and stuff drives me crazy, so I prefer to have glasses. These are rimless, though, so you can actually see more of my face now.

Here are the new ones (don't know if you can tell I was nervous while taking this picture....was waiting to be picked up to go meet the parents yesterday):


And for comparison, here's the older ones. This was taken pre-Glenn Miller event. The Boy piled hats onto my head.

Eye Exam Fun!

On the way back from the Glenn Miller event, the following conversation (sorta) occured while trying to find the freeway home.

The Boy: We need 880, so keep your eyes open.
Me: Okie. ::squints at road signs:: uhh...
The Boy: Oh, there it is!
Me: ...You can read that!?
THe Boy: Yep!
Me: Okay, so you can read that with your new laser eyes....and I can't read it with my glasses. ::takes off glasses and peers at them:: When did that become fair?

So, today I went and got to meet my new eye doctor....who I LOVE. He was personable and talkative, he asked questions and was interested in things I had to say, and he was patient as all get out. I have a huge problem with the glacauma test, where they poof air in your eyes (at least they've gotten gentler), and my last eye doctor's staff got mad at me when I kept flinching and/or blinking due to being tense about having something that close to my eyes. This guy was very sweet about it and I was calm enough so that I only had to do three retakes....apparently, he has a special needs son and that would definitely attribute to his patience. :)

When he was doing the "Better 1....or 2?" part of the exam for my left eye, he had a lense up that was pretty darn clear, and swapped it out to one that was completely blurred by comparison.

Doc: Any change when I do this? ::flip::
Me: No way in hell I can read that line now.
Doc: That's what your glasses are, currently.
Me: ....Wha?? I didn't know they were that off!

It was weird. Also weird was when he let me play with a little monocle thing that was solid except for a slit in it, to show me something cool with my astigmatism. Angled infront of my one left eye (the one with the worse astigmatism) a certain way and the chart was somewhat clear...clearer than normal, actually. But if you rotated it 90 degrees, it became totally blurred. It was SO weird!

So, all in all....I'm not sure what my vision is in relation to 20/20....don't think that actually came up....but I found out that I'm somewhat nearsighted in my right eye, and the astigmatism in my left eye is more warped than my right. So I'm getting new lenses and frames with the tweaked perscription. I'm actually going to go for a new look and go with totally rim-less glasses, instead of the half-rim frames I have now. I'll post pics when I have those!

Other News:
Took my bike over to The Boy's to get it looked at, since it hasn't been used in about 5-6 years...and I've had it for over 10...and it seriously needed looking over before it would be rideable. Apparently, while it's not totally beyond repair, it's definitely not safe and was put together with shoddy construction. We got various bits lubed up and tweaked other bits (I don't know the technicalities behind it...if I did, I would've been able to work on it myself, I bet!) so that it's.....well, somewhat safer for street riding, I guess. All in all, it might just make more sense to get a new one that isn't too expensive, since I'd like to start biking around again and maybe even attempt some tame trails while I regain my certainty with riding a bike.

A Change of Plans:
Due to The Boy's grandpa not doing well, he'll be going down to L.A. to spend some time with him and other family members. Because of all of that, no one will be around this weekend to cook for the first night of Passover...so his parents are moving their dinner to Wednesday. Also, The Boy and I decided it'd probably be better if I don't go to the Tuesday dinner at a different family's house...since with the previous plans, it made a bit more sense. Meet the parents, then see them again in a less one-on-one situation the next night. If I went to Tuesday, then Wednesday, it would feel a little....backwards. And they wouldn't have been able to grill me properly. :P

So yes. I still get to meet them, and have the dinner with them, but it's just on Wednesday instead of two days in the week. I feel a little less intimidated now, actually.

Glenn Miller Orchestra Event pictures

Spent too much time dancing the night away to get any really good pictures of the venue....but trust me, it was aMAZing. The swing dancing was on the hangar deck of the aircraft carrier, but you could go up to the flight deck and see parked planes as well as the lights of the city. It was cold and kinda foggy out, so while you could see the lights of the city from the flight deck, it definitely was chilly and damp.

There were so many people there, but it only ever actually felt crowded when attempting to watch the professional swing dancers and occasionally when on the dance floor (especially when you're like me and got stepped on by ladies' heels three times during the night. Owwies).

For my hair, I ended up doing a sort of "Dorothy Gale" ponytail thing for hair, instead of anything that was posted. It was simple, and it worked really well. So yay!

Here's a slide show of our pictures from the event. Enjoy! Oh, and see how The Boy doesn't have his glasses anymore? Hurrah for Lasik!

So yes, that was wonderfully fun. And we kept bumping into people that we knew from FNW and other places. Yay for good music, fun dancing, and fantabulous company.

On Sunday, there was kayaking in the morning -- first time EVER for me -- and it was SO much fun. I'm definitely feeling it today, though...my shoulders could definitely use a massage. It hurts in a good way, though, if that makes sense. We had a picnic lunch with my parentals, and in the evening took an impromptu lightrail ride down to downtown San Jose for dinner and wandering.

All in all, a fabulous weekend that I wouldn't trade for anything. A great kickoff to spring break. :)

Oh my God...

Last night and this morning I was having some down-in-the-dumps feelings and my esteem was lower than usual. This morning, at breakfast with The Boy, there was a note in my napkin that had my name on the outside, and inside all it said was "You are beautiful."

I totally cried.

<3

Friggin Laser Beams!

So on Wednesday, The Boy got Lasik surgery done. I drove him to and from the appointment, then played nurse for the poor boy. Once the anesthetic wore off, his eyes felt like they were burning and he was extremely light sensitive, so we kept all of the lights off in his condo. As if those weren't enough, his allergies had been bothering him and he'd been so tense during the procedure that he developed a combo sinus/tension headache....he was in so much pain at times that he would cling to me tightly and whimper. I wish there was more that I could've done to help with the pain.

After a few hours, his dad came by for dinner (read: pizza, because you can be temporarily blind and still handle it easily) and to see how The Boy was doing. I was a little nervous about it, when I knew he'd be dropping by, but it wasn't too hard at all. He was very nice, and it was probably good for me to meet at least ONE of them beforehand, so I don't feel like I just get dropped into a totally intimidating situation while only knowing The Boy.

Eventually, The Roommate came out of his cave and was social, and gave The Boy some asprin (to go with his Valium and Motrin) to help with all of the pain he was having. Thankfully, he felt better within a half hour to 45 minutes after taking those (the tea I made for us probably helped out a bit, too), and he was up for singing and even attempting to dance a bit. His eyes still felt a bit burny, but the Valium was helping him not care about it as much.

I didn't let him kick me out that night when he was going to bed, because I wanted to make sure he was alright in the morning. And while he was allowed to open his eyes, he was still pretty light sensitive and didn't feel up to trying to drive himself anywhere, so I drove him to his follow-up in the morning.

He worked from home yesterday, but overall is feeling better with every hour that passes. So that's very good...though it'll take some getting used to to see him without his glasses. Also, for him to get over his habits of adjusting glasses that he no longer needs. :)

(Oh, and The Boy says that his dad thought I was really nice. He said it was good PR for me to stick around and help him out so much. Well, what was I going to do, drive him home and drop him off?? I think not!)

An update of sorts

Had a vera nice weekend with The Boy, though I was in an odd mood on St. Patty's day....if I were to retell it here, it would sound like I had a worse time than I did, so I won't bother. It actually wasn't too bad, just felt kinda out of place when he and his friends started a strategy game and I opted to sit out because the logistics behind it confused me a bit.

Tomorrow (Wednesday), The Boy is going to be getting Lasik eye surgery done....so guess who gets to play nurse! I'll be driving him to and from, and I'm going to stick around until he's allowed to use his eyes again and he's over the Valium.

This Saturday, we're going to a swing dance event that the Glenn Miller Orchestra will be playing at on the USS Hornet. VERY COOL and I'm incredibly excited about it. I've been trying to figure out what to do with my hair...I want to do a Pageboy, but my one attempt so far ended up with severe curls. :P That'll work, though, if my other attempt doesn't work any better.

One last thing, that I mentioned in a comment in my previous post. So, I will be meeting The Boy's parents in a week and a half at the latest. Yeah, you read that right...what will probably be my first encounter with The (Nice Jewish) Boy's parents is for dinner on the first night of Passover. Oh yeah, I'm nervous. But incredibly excited, too.

Quick Weekend Notes

The Boy kidnapped me on Friday (well, told me to come over at about 5), and we had a picnic dinner in the park where he sang very sweet lovey folk music tunes from his tome of songs (he has a huge collection of them). Then we snuggled up back at his place to watch Spirted Away.

Spent all day in SF on Saturday, where we went all through the Haight and Ashbury district looking for 40s clothes (we're going to a Glenn Miller Orchestra event soon), then to a peace and protest song "hootenanie" at The Cafe International. Very cool event.

Sunday, we walked down to the Farmer's Market in Campbell, got almost matching outfits for the swing event (he has a brown suit, I have a brown dress, and we have matching hats...it was his idea to get matching hats)....snuggled and napped in the afternoon for a bit, then worked on a folk song he wanted to learn. I got to harmonize YAY. Grabbed some food at the store, made dinner, and once again snuggled for entertainment on his large 24 inch computer screen.

I was there from 5 on Friday until 10 pm on Sunday. Much love for spending so much time with him. :)

Oh. And he told me his mom wants to meet me. So yeah, at some point in the undetermined future, I'll be over having dinner with him and his folks. Holy crap nervous! Never had to deal with that situation before. What with Joey essentially hiding me from his folks (have I mentioned enough times how bloody content I am to be out of that relationship? I don't mind being friends with him, but that relationship was crap on my end).

I know I just gotta be myself....but "myself" is extremely nervous in new situations! I just really want them to like me....'cause I can really see this whole thing working out between The Boy and me. Anyone have advice for keeping my cool at least so I don't come off like too much of a shy and nervous nutjob? :P

Can you tell I'm kinda totally smitten here?

I love surreal events!!

So last night, before heading over to FNW, The Boy and I stopped off at Stanford to participate in a friend's recording session.

See, this fella typically plays his music at a gelato place in downtown Palo Alto on Fridays, so twice a month we stop in to see him anyway. He's such a character! There's no way that I could describe him here and do it any justice....but essentially, the event was for a CD he's making called "Blues Kazoo"...where the music is all guitar, kazoo, and miscellaneous instruments (bike horns, train whistles, bells, and a siren whistle that I got to play).

Aside from us, there were two teenage boys who showed up and were REALLY into the whole thing, an older couple who was there at the beginning, and a fella who showed up later and left a bit early. There were a few "audience participation" numbers -- one with all of the misc. instruments where I had the siren whistle (a "perfect instrument for me," I've heard ;-) ), and another few where we played kazoo in the chorus or sang along. Hee, I was the only female person around for the sing-a-long stuff, so even though it's hard to find my individual kazooing...it's REALLY easy to pick out my voice in the songs. Oh! And one of the songs, at the end, you can hear me giggle. I'm kinda embarassed by it, but I've been told it's perfect and cute. So yay, then!

Can't wait to get my own CD of it....it's so going onto my iPod.

FNW was much fun, as always. Fun music -- though the tempos felt a little fuzzy for some of the dances -- and all in all it was great fun. I even got a Congress in, and dragged/lead through the Bohemian National Polka for the second time ever. The funny thing about that, is the time I finally NAILED the pivots....another dancing couple crashed into us. Ha! Ah well, such is life.

Just a quick Picture Post

Taken by my friend at the Gaskell Ball....that Cinderella gown is virtually falling off of me! Yay for shrinking in size, but boo for that awesome ball gown not fitting as well as it used to.




Aww my handsome Boy. I want to hug him.

My weekends kinda rock now.

Purrrrrr......so very good this weekend.

The Boy came back from Florida early-ish on Friday, so we got together and cooked dinner. Very yummy marinated lamb and veggies. Popped a movie into his computer and flop/snuggled on the bed for it....though both of us kept dozing off during the movie. Actually, we went to sleep for the night at 9:00, him because he was still adjusting to the time change, and me because I was so tired anyway.

We both woke up the next morning kinda early, at around 7, and after finally getting up at 9:30 we cooked breakfast (frittata, Mmmm). We basically bummed around the house all day on Saturday, 'cause it was cold and icky out...though we did take time out to go get our cars washed! Mine REALLY needed it, heh. :P At about 4:00, I came home for a quick bath to warm up and shave my legs, and gather up my clothing for The Gaskell Ball. We took my Cinderella costume (which doesn't really fit all that well...I've lost weight since the summer!) and loaded up his car. He wore his basic tux stuff, so I put on some nicer clothes while we went out to sushi dinner. The dancing was VERY fun, and I'll poost pictures up when I have them. I had a lot of friends there from Friday Night Waltz, and one of my friends from the Wednesday Irish Dancing was there, too!! Yay fun. Got back to his place by around 1:00 AM, and essentially passed out.

I woke up at 8 in the morning to find The Boy walking around and doing laundry stuffs. Once he noticed I was awake, though, he crawled back into bed for some cuddling and he gave me a massage on my back -- because my shoulders/back were soooooore from dancing so long. :P We had a big breakfast of leftover fritatta and bagels, then got in touch with The Boy's friend of the same name. Long story shorter: we all met up for lunch, hiked for 7 miles, had dinner, then we came back.

I'm sore, I'm tired, but I'm extremely happy -- though I wish I were back at his place and snuggled up against my Boy for the night. He's a bit o' wonderful, he is.

Mmmm....Good Day...

Last night, I went out to Friday Night Waltz with The Boy. Not a lot of people were there, since most of them went to the Stanford Ball, I guess. So there was a lot of space on the dance floor, which meant lots of creative dancing. Listening to "Barbie Girl" in German is just.....highly bizarre! Oh, and having about four people hovering around me and staring at my torso in an attempt to translate the Spanish poem that was printed on my shirt was VERY entertaining.

After a long night of sleeping and snuggling on The Boy, we had breakfast this morning and I darted home to change and grab some things before we headed out to Santa Cruz for the day. It was just GORGEOUS out there, the temprature was up in the 70's. I've never actually just wandered around downtown Santa Cruz before, and it's a lovely place. It's just....charming! And there was also sooo many street performers playing their instruments and whatnot, and my two personal favorites were The Great Morgani and a family playing bluegrass music together -- two teen boys, a mom, and either an elderly looking dad or a grampa. I really think that all downtowns ought to be like that.

The Boy did keep getting phonecalls from work, due to more shit hitting the fan, and he felt sooo bad about having to be on the phone while I was around. He was feeling so bad about it after the first long phone call (we were at a coffee/tea house, so I just sipped my tea and read my Neil Gaiman book while he did work -- because really, what can ya do?) that I had to get up and give him a good hug around the neck and shoulders. He felt a bit better after that. He really doesn't want to be one of the people who does work stuff while out with others....as he put it, he doesn't want work to be intruding on the things that are really important.

All in all, we had a really good day. We danced to the music of the street performers, we sat and I leaned against him while he sang a few of his favorite songs (I joined in whenever I knew the words), we had dinner at a seafood restaurant on the wharf, then he bought us each a chocolate dipped strawberry for desert. Very fun to be fed those things in the dark.

He kept thanking me for the day, too, and told me that today would've sucked if it weren't for me. It's true, too...he would've stayed home and been sucked into work drama, and I know he needed the weekend and some joyful company. I'm all too happy to provide that service. I love listening to him sing, and it was just so nice to spend the whole day walking and holding hands. Le sigh. :)

Alright, I'm going to give him a quick call and then head to bed. Tomorrow's hike was called off, due to The Boy having more work stuff happening. He hopes to be done by mid-day, though, and he'll give me a call so we can go play and he can get relaxation in before he has to leave to go BACK to Florida on Monday. Poor guy...he really hates not being able to follow through on his plans, and work has been causing him to do that a lot this month.

Happy Valentine's!

Hope you few readers have a good day today! I'll try to, even though I miss my Boy. Darn work sending him to Florida...at least I'll get to see him this weekend for a hike. :)

A Generally Happy Kitola

Last night was much fun.

The Boy and I went to this restaurant and bar called "The Blue Pheasant" for dinner and dancing....which I'd been to before, but had forgotten about. He really needed the outting after some very stressy/hectic three weeks at work ("The sky's been falling," as he puts it) and I've been feeling cabin feverish due to the cold that I'm FINALLY over (save for the annoying cough), so I poked around until I found something that said it had food and dancing. Metroactive.com said this place had "Big band, swing, 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's" music, and their website had said something about a wide range of dance music -- "from swing and ballroom to hip-hop and salsa, and even some good ol' rock and roll." So, I suggested it, and he agreed it sounded like a great idea. And I finally had a reason to break out my new swing dance dress!

Dinner was yummy, he had something they called a lamb steak, and I had the special of petrale (my very favorite fish) in crab sauce. He even offered to buy wine....I'm not much of a drinker, but I'll take some white zinfandel when it's offered. After deciding to pass on dessert (we couldn't even finish what we had), we went over to the bar/dancing part of it.

The dancing was very different than most other dancing I've done. First of all, it was pretty crowded when we started dancing (around 9, I think), probably due to the fact that there were two birthdays being celebrated, and most of these people were 35 or older. The music also wasn't really what I expected from the descriptions -- meaning, it was primarily disco and 80s music. Well, you'd be amazed by what you can swing dance to! Later on, it was so crowded you could barely move on the dance floor (at least with the couple-dancing we were doing....if you were just sorta spazz-dancing, I guess there was enough room) and it was freakishly LOUD. So, being the "boring" people we are, we called it a night at 10:30 and went back to The Boy's. Ha, best conversation happened in the car, though, as we marveled at the sound difference.

Him: .......It's quiet....
Me: ........Yeah...
Both: .......
Me: ...Except for the ringing in my ears.
Him: I was about to say that!

Back at his place...well, I'll say this: I'm a sucker for candles, soft music, and slow dancing in the dim lighting. ::Swoon::



As for less than happy things: The Boy's work decided he needs to be in Florida this week....and the latest flight out he could get was 7 in the morning on Sunday. So he's going to miss seeing my show. He really doesn't want to miss it and is really upset that the trip is not only messing up his plan to do that, but also that it's keeping him away on Valentine's Day. I'm completely bummed out too, but at least I know it isn't his fault and he would rather be here.

At least last night was exceptionally splendiferous. And having that memory, as well as knowing that The Boy had the fun night that he needed and deserved, is what makes me happy despite the sad stuff about Florida.

Some Pics!

Still don't have the full costume pictures from The Boy's camera, but by poking around on Flickr, I found us in the background! You can see my cool black and white dress, my hair that I was sooo proud of putting up myself, and my ever handsome Boy waltzing with me. :)


And these aren't from the Edwardian Ball....but here are a few pictures taken at the Wassail Party back on Jan. 6th.



This one isn't the best picture of me, but I love The Boy's face.


That's all I have for right now! I'm gonna go to bed a little early. I'm battling a cold at the moment. Enjoy the pictures!

Oh, here's one more of my Jitterbug costume for Wizard of Oz. I was killing time between scenes reading "32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny." Very good book, written by The Boy's 3rd grade teacher, actually! Green Spandex is just so flattering. :P

Edwardian Ball

I had soooooo much fun at the ball last night. Even though I forgot my wallet and we had to turn around when we were virually there....The Boy was being so darn sweet about it, though, and tried to keep me from feeling too bad about it. Felt pretty guilty on the way back to the house, but fine on the way back to the ball.

The music was awesome, the acrobatics were aMAZing, and oh the sexy ballroom dancing that there was between me and The Boy. ; ) There's nothing hotter than ending a slow and sultry swing with a kiss....mrawr.

Also, to quote The Boyfriend: "You're getting a lot of looks, you should revel in it....even some of the girls are checking you out" Talk about bumping my esteem up a few levels.

Bumped into people I know there, from FNW. One of which I know the name of, but he didn't seem to remember meeting me, and another that I know (originally) from Celtic Night at the pub and went ice skating with The Boy and another friend of our's way back in December.

Anyway, I'll put up a picture of us all dressed up once The Boyfriend gets them off of his camera.

A new Labyrinth and Vivid Dreams

Last night, The Boy and I went to go see "Pan's Labyrinth" with some of his friends (I invited one of mine, but he bailed, the bum). I was impressed that I'd met them all before, at least once, and I get along with them (aside from the one currently living with The Boy, but simply because I don't really know how to relate to him).

As for the movie, it is REALLY cool. If y'all ever get the chance to go see it, you should. The effects are very cool and dark, like in Mirrormask, but it's also got a good horror aspect. There were parts that I had to watch between my fingers while semi-burried against The Boy, due to the ick factor.

One thing that is in the movie are these fairies that, at the beginning, look like bugs. Big icky LONG bugs. Apparently, these bugs appeared in a dream of The Boy's last night, and he's a very vivid dreamer. ::Snerks:: At some point in the night, I was awoken by being abruptly grabbed and pulled/rolled to The Boy's side of the bed while he swatted at where I had been.

Me: ::WTF OMG MY HEART:: Mnugh!?
Boy: ::Completely, totally asleep:: Bug. Big bug.
Me: ....Wha?
Boy: There was a bug. ::mumble zzzz::
Me: ::Half asleep:: You scared the hell outta me.
Boy: Sorry.

All of that happened while he was asleep, or at least not completely awake at least. I asked him about it in the morning and he very vaguely remembered something about it happening. Now, it amuses the hell outta me. :)

It's already a busy year!

Why yes, I have been seeing The Boy nearly every day this year so far, why do you ask? :D

Wednesday, I baked cookies and went over to The Boy's house later on with about half of them to hang out and watch Mirrormask. VERY cool movie.

Thursday, the Wizard of Oz rehearsals started again and holy crap I'd almost forgotten how disorganized and repetative they are. Yargh. Was supposed to meet up with The Boy and our whistle playing friend (Um...I shall dub him Whistles for here) and sing bawdy sea shanties, but the friend didn't show. So instead, I went over and just hung out for a quiet evening of poking at his computer, learning a few folk tunes, and getting some knitting done.

Friday had Friday Night Waltz, YAY, and that was fun as always. Whistles came with The Boy and I for his very first FNW event, and I'm pretty certain he enjoyed it. Didn't do as much dancing as I normally do, though, since I kept getting really dizzy/nauseous really easily for some reason.....probably had to do with dinner, since The Boy was having the same problem. Even with that, though, we ended up getting home from the dance event after 2 AM and crashing for the night.

Today (Saturday), we went Wassailing. A big ol' party group of folk, some people from the Wednesday Irish Dancing that The Boy and I do and others who are from a Morris Dance Troupe that we know all got together to do 6 "home invasions." Essentially, we went around to these houses, sang our wassail song, got fed food, did (or watched) some Morris Dancing, and went to the next house. So, our party was pretty much like locusts....but it spawned parties for the people who we invaded, so that was fun! I just got home from that, and whew am I tired. And full. I've been fed total crap all day today, except for the breakfast I had at The Boy's.

(Also, hi, sharing showers is fun and friendly)

Anyway. The Boy is hiking tomorrow, but I'm not going. It's a 20 mile hike, and while it sounds like a good one....I don't have that much stamina for hiking yet, and I have another Wizard of Oz rehearsal to attend tomorrow.

Holy Crap....what a GREAT weekend. (Again, LOTS of reading)

Essentially, I was with The Boy from Saturday morning, 10:30, until Monday evening, 10:30. About 60 hours!! So much fun. Well, let's get down to it. :)

Saturday:
Well, on Friday I got a call from The Boy, asking if I wanted to go for a hike, so I went over to his place 10:30 in the morning on Saturday. Put together a pack, grabbed some ToGos Sandwiches to take along for a lunch, and off we headed for the Santa Cruz mountains to a place called Castle Rock. Now, I've not done hiking in YEARS, but I love getting outside and doing things, so I was up for it. The Boy's a pretty fast walker, even on city streets, but I was able to keep up with him. I even did some rock climbing -- hand hold and foot hold climbing, not just getting over rocks that are in the way -- which was entertaining for The Boy when I'd get to the top and then make nervous noises when it came time to get down. He's run down like a mountain goat, and I'd stay at the top wide-eyed and snickering going "Ummm.....okay..." All in all, it was beautiful out there, a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to going on another hike with him sometime in the future. :D

Here's a quick picture I snapped with my phone when The Boy found a cavey thing and was telling me to head up with him....I couldn't resist, he looked so stuck!


Afterwards, we went into downtown Saratoga and got some hot cider to sip while wandering around the area. Stayed there essentially until the drinks were gone, then headed out. This was when he told me his weekend plans: Staying the night at the friends' party,then sledding on New Year's Day! So we spent a good deal of time going around to sport equipment stores and army surplus stores so that he can get new snow pants and boots, and so I can get a pair of my very own pair of pants and gloves.

Next, we rented a movie (Kinky Boots....pretty good movie, go see it if you haven't), and grabbed some noodle soup at a Chinese resturaunt before going back to his place and getting comfy on his bed to watch the movie on his 24 inch screen Mac computer.

Once the movie was over, I went to Target to get some thermals and see if I could get some good boots as well....sadly, there were none that were comfortable in my size. Then, I darted home and packed up for the weekend. The poor dogs and kitty were all clingy and would be saying "Where are you goooooing don't you luv us?" if they could talk. I took pity on it and let my kitty help me while I wrapped my brother's birthday gift. While I was doing all of that, The Boy was back at his place making pumpkin bread to take to the party the next day.

When I got back, he put together a fire and we settled down with tea to read by it while the last of the bread was baking. Stayed out there until 12:30, which was when poor ol' Huckleberry Finn was making me fall asleep (I love Mark Twain, but the dialect gets difficult when you're so worn out). And FINALLY we went to bed for the night.

Sunday:
Spent most of this day driving out to where the party was at.

We woke up, then a few hours later actually GOT up out of bed, and while I was showering The Boy made pancakes for breakfast. His roomie didn't want any (that fella's kinda anti social. I saw him for all of 5 minutes the whole time I was there), so we had a lot of pancakes for just the two of us. They were pretty darn good! After breakfast, we put all of our stuff into the car, including chains for the tires (just in case), and the saucer-sled...the trunk was pretty full. Once everything was packed, we headed out. Grabbed lunch at some Chinese place between here and there, and took the leftovers with us to add to the party food.

It was a little intimidating, at first, to meet all of these people who The Boy had known since college and/or high school. Thankfully, there were kitties there, and that helped break the ice. Both myself and one of the other friend's new girlfriend spent the first few minutes of our time there petting or playing with the cats. Over all, his friends kept commenting that it was scary how alike The Boy and I are, and one of the girls was very pleased that I knew of the movie Boondock Saints and WASN'T a 14 year old boy. I think I made a good impression on them. :) Phew!

One thing that I find entertaining, in an odd way, was that at some point we were swing dancing to the music....but when The Boy pulled me back from a twirl out, my elbow cracked into a wall/doorway. The poor Boy's eyes widened and he pulled me into a hug saying "I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry!" He felt sooo bad that he did that. It was a pretty good wonk, too. Got red and a bump and everything. It's still sore, even. At least my injuries tend to amuse me if they're not too extreme.

Sometime around 2:30, The Boy and I set up sleeping bags and we crashed out on the floor for the night. There were still people awake here and there, but we both fell asleep relatively quick.

Monday:
Another day with lots of driving!

Once The Boy and I were up and fed (I had a bagel, he had left over Chinese food because the bagels were covered in cheese and he's lactose intolerant), we annoyed his not-quite-awake friends by doing the Chicken Dance. That's about when one of them teasingly said "Good God, there's two of them....you guys aren't multiplying, are you?" Hehe.

While the other two people who were going with us got ready to leave, The Boy handed me this sketchbook that the group's been adding entries to at their get togethers for the past three years and told me that I had to add something. I drew a picture of one of the cats playing with a feather toy, since that's what was going on infront of me and it was a little too early in the day for me to be inspired by anything I didn't see in real life. The girl going sledding with us (who also owned the cats) saw it and knew exactly which cat it was. I was happy about that. :D

Hokay. So, we drove up and up and up into the mountains (my ear didn't bother me much YAY!) until we found snow. We parked, got out of the car, pulled on the snow gear, and trudged around in the cold and wet to find a really good sledding spot. We found a hill that had two runs -- one that was clear and shorter, and one that had a few more obstacles and was longer. We spent a lot of time switching back and forth between the two runs, and the trees kept leaping out and attacking my legs. It never hurt, but it was entertaining when my heels hit a tree and I ended up kinda split-legged with the tree in the middle half way down the run, and I could hear the boys at the top groan in sympathy. ::Cackles:: Yay lots of padding.

There were snow fights, burrying The Boy in the snow (the friends got a banana and two small oranges and gave snow-boy a fruity penis, then took pictures), generally lots of tomfoolery, before we headed back to the car.

Here's where the funny part is. We drove back to where the friends lived and dropped them off, changed into slightly cooler clothes, and headed off again. I was supposed to have dinner with my family (parents, brother, brother's wife) in Davis, because it was the brother's birthday on New Year's Eve. So The Boy joined me and we met them in Davis at the resturaunt, since it was on the way to my brother's house from where we were. It went VERY well. The Boy commented later on in the night that my family was fun, which was REALLY nice since even my friends have never made that comment...heck, my guy buds are all afraid of my dad for some reason, and Joey only hung out with my family once early on in our dating, and once at my sister's wedding....in the two years we were together!

Anyway, dinner was done, so we kept going to Dixon (again, on our way home from where we started the day) for cake and presents. We stuck around there for a bit after my parents left, and The Boy and my brother had a lot of fun finding out their connections with each other. They'd actually met before I'd met The Boy a few times, because they have a lot of mutual friends that they didn't know about. Talk about a small world!

We left my brother's and came home, singing and talking the whole way, and got back to his place by around 10:30. I helped him unload the car, put my stuff in my car, then helped him carry stuff up to his apartment. A hug and a kiss, and the weekend of insane busy-ness was done as I went back to my car to go home.

Summary:
Hiking + New Year's Party + Sledding + Dinner with The Boy and family = Very tired but VERY happy me.


I may even be going back over to his place tonight. Tuesdays is his "making" night, and he said I was more than welcome to come over and bring my knitting to work on and hang out while he started on an electronics thing, since I'd be clueless on the electronics.

The Kitola says "Purrrrr." :)