A Fun Weekend, Somewhat
Aug. 18th, 2003 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Saturday was fun-- we went to the Interational Celtic Festival at Hunter Mountain (Google Hunter Mountain Celtic and you'll find it, but I'm lazy). I hoped to show Dave bagpipe band competitions and caber tossing, but, well, the bagpipe band competitions were Sunday, and the caber tossing was all amateurs. So that wasn't so great. We'll have to go to the Highland Games at Altamont (they don't show up well in Google) on Labor Day Weekend for better ones.
But, we had plenty of beer, watched a cool show about raptors with a pair of falconers, their owls and hawks and falcons, and a bunch of drunken sots as audience members. We sang Irish folk songs (there are so many songs to chooose from. But all the bands choose the same twenty popularized by the Clancy Brothers. On the one hand, drunks can sing along with them. But on the other hand, drunks can sing along with them.)
Dave and I mostly had a series of lovely conversations, which is what I enjoyed most. That and several beers-- I've never been old enough to drink at these festivals before.
We also perused the pointless tchatchkes with Celtic themes-- some good old Irish sayings and some cool jewelry, but mostly dumb stuff, cliches, and hopelessly tacky items. Also, some overly politicized separatist shit.
Which always slightly offends me, slightly inspires me, and slightly saddens me, but mostly annoys me. Most of the people who give the IRA money really don't understand the issues, and it's just fanning embers of a stupid old grudge. Yes, the IRA is in the right, but really at this point they'd be better off leaving it to debate and focusing their energies on peaceful motivation of the people. Peace didn't work for them initially, sure, but at this point shooting each other isn't going to help much. But anyway...
Sunday was a day to get things done. I cleaned the kitchen, I cleaned the bathroom, I reorganized both bedrooms. My bedroom is the second-largest room in the apartment and I barely use it. I'm expanding the living room into the bedroom-- my quest is to make it homey and livable, so that it can be a further living and working space, rather than just being a repository of items I have nowhere else to put. So I have to optimize usage of the closet spaces in the house, reorganize them a bit, and finally get everything put away.
We only moved in in February, so it's not like we'd be settled yet, right?
We ran some errands as well. I'm on a quest for the perfect substrate for my frogs' tank. I swear I've seen little plastic "stones" for use in floral arrangements-- about 10 mm in diameter, flattened on one side, to put in the bottom of a vase to hold the flowers in place. Everyone else swears they're only in glass.
I want lightweight because the tank is cracked. Plastic is lightweight. But I suppose i could use glass, just to get the damn thing done. Plastic ones don't exist, I guess. I suppose they'd float in water, so they wouldn't work for the purpose I'm thinking of them. Sigh...
I really want a betta fish or goldfish or something cute. I think that would be great. But I'm restraining myself for now. This is not the time. I have to get the frogs sorted.
The other thing we did on Sunday was make Dave a super-spy.
After several months of his AT&T cellphone not working, he finally sought help from AT&T, which told him they'd sell him a new phone for $75 but at the end of his contract (in three months) he'd probably have to upgrade to a new plan, and his old plan's phone wouldn't work with the new plan, so he'd have to buy a new one anyway. And then his new plan wouldn't include Buffalo in its home area, or in fact any of NY State except Westchester and Rockland and the City, so it would be almost entirely worthless.
So he said fuck it, threw out his AT&T cellphone, will pay the last three bills (cheaper than cancelling), and signed up for service with Cingular with the phone he wanted.
Which is one of those cool new phones with a camera in it and a color display and Q*bert and other games on it and you can download pictures and ringtones. He spent ALL DAY yesterday playing with it and was immensely pleased with himself. Very cute. He took a bunch of pictures but deleted them all as they were crappy because it's not much of a camera in there...
So, he has a new toy and is pleased with himself. He's a super spy now.
So, that's all. Off to do Monday things, I guess. I should open up my stickies and see what notes I left myself... (Good program, btw. If you have a PC and are jealous of the Mac stickies, you should check out that program. It's better than the Mac stickies, so now Mac users can be jealous of you. Awesome features, man.)
Anyhow. Blah. Had a dream about work but it was enjoyably surreal so perhaps I can move past that and get something actually done. What you think? Maybe.
But, we had plenty of beer, watched a cool show about raptors with a pair of falconers, their owls and hawks and falcons, and a bunch of drunken sots as audience members. We sang Irish folk songs (there are so many songs to chooose from. But all the bands choose the same twenty popularized by the Clancy Brothers. On the one hand, drunks can sing along with them. But on the other hand, drunks can sing along with them.)
Dave and I mostly had a series of lovely conversations, which is what I enjoyed most. That and several beers-- I've never been old enough to drink at these festivals before.
We also perused the pointless tchatchkes with Celtic themes-- some good old Irish sayings and some cool jewelry, but mostly dumb stuff, cliches, and hopelessly tacky items. Also, some overly politicized separatist shit.
Which always slightly offends me, slightly inspires me, and slightly saddens me, but mostly annoys me. Most of the people who give the IRA money really don't understand the issues, and it's just fanning embers of a stupid old grudge. Yes, the IRA is in the right, but really at this point they'd be better off leaving it to debate and focusing their energies on peaceful motivation of the people. Peace didn't work for them initially, sure, but at this point shooting each other isn't going to help much. But anyway...
Sunday was a day to get things done. I cleaned the kitchen, I cleaned the bathroom, I reorganized both bedrooms. My bedroom is the second-largest room in the apartment and I barely use it. I'm expanding the living room into the bedroom-- my quest is to make it homey and livable, so that it can be a further living and working space, rather than just being a repository of items I have nowhere else to put. So I have to optimize usage of the closet spaces in the house, reorganize them a bit, and finally get everything put away.
We only moved in in February, so it's not like we'd be settled yet, right?
We ran some errands as well. I'm on a quest for the perfect substrate for my frogs' tank. I swear I've seen little plastic "stones" for use in floral arrangements-- about 10 mm in diameter, flattened on one side, to put in the bottom of a vase to hold the flowers in place. Everyone else swears they're only in glass.
I want lightweight because the tank is cracked. Plastic is lightweight. But I suppose i could use glass, just to get the damn thing done. Plastic ones don't exist, I guess. I suppose they'd float in water, so they wouldn't work for the purpose I'm thinking of them. Sigh...
I really want a betta fish or goldfish or something cute. I think that would be great. But I'm restraining myself for now. This is not the time. I have to get the frogs sorted.
The other thing we did on Sunday was make Dave a super-spy.
After several months of his AT&T cellphone not working, he finally sought help from AT&T, which told him they'd sell him a new phone for $75 but at the end of his contract (in three months) he'd probably have to upgrade to a new plan, and his old plan's phone wouldn't work with the new plan, so he'd have to buy a new one anyway. And then his new plan wouldn't include Buffalo in its home area, or in fact any of NY State except Westchester and Rockland and the City, so it would be almost entirely worthless.
So he said fuck it, threw out his AT&T cellphone, will pay the last three bills (cheaper than cancelling), and signed up for service with Cingular with the phone he wanted.
Which is one of those cool new phones with a camera in it and a color display and Q*bert and other games on it and you can download pictures and ringtones. He spent ALL DAY yesterday playing with it and was immensely pleased with himself. Very cute. He took a bunch of pictures but deleted them all as they were crappy because it's not much of a camera in there...
So, he has a new toy and is pleased with himself. He's a super spy now.
So, that's all. Off to do Monday things, I guess. I should open up my stickies and see what notes I left myself... (Good program, btw. If you have a PC and are jealous of the Mac stickies, you should check out that program. It's better than the Mac stickies, so now Mac users can be jealous of you. Awesome features, man.)
Anyhow. Blah. Had a dream about work but it was enjoyably surreal so perhaps I can move past that and get something actually done. What you think? Maybe.
