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.