Le Weekend

Somehow it's gone again? This one was particularly quick. A sickening sinking not unlike the feeling in my belly at the ascending arc of a roller-coaster's first drop when I awoke today reminded me it was time to return to Work. And here I am. It's hot in here, and way too bright, and too busy. Cha is on the third of a four-day weekend and keeps rubbing it in--Friday she had a snow day that technically was an ice day, and Monday her school is closed for President's Day, a holiday we don't have in common.

I'm jealous, terribly jealous. And aggravated because she just called and announced she's having people over tonight and really I'm not in the mood for forced socialization. What horrors shall I endure this evening? Cranium? Pictionary? Monopoly? Balderdash?

Friday the plan was to eat at the Khumari Nepalese buffet and then to catch the 2:15 showing of Hotel Rwanda at The Charles. Didn't happen, or at least not the second part. Instead we called Julio and asked if he would accompany us to lunch, and because he acquiesced we had to get him and take him home and this caused us to miss the flick, but no big deal, because lunch was grand and we got to see his nearly-finished kitchen and his nearly-finished paintings

[I've got to do some thinking about the latest, which is a tall narrow canvas not dissimilar to an older one with which I'm familiar; in the newest we have a rocky outcropping and some either dead or dormant brush or trees or branches. In the lower left of the canvas is a beautiful yet melancholic redhead gazing poignantly out over the left shoulder of the viewer, her swollen baby-filled belly beautiful and smooth, exposed by a hiked shirt, a saucy bit o' red thong visible above her jeans at the hip. To the right is a very large black man, completely naked and viewed 3/4 from behind, his magnificent ripped glutes the center of attention. He's muscular and poised and on stilts, his head is turned away to the right so we see the back of his head. He is looking in precisely the opposite direction from the young woman, but is on a higher plane than she, her head coming perhaps to the level of his mighty thighs. Significantly, the black man is a satyr, with goat legs from the calves down. We see him almost in entirety, she is visible from the hips up. The mood of the painting is dark, somber, and foreboding, despite the expectancy.]

and within a year or so it's quite possible he and Yo! Adrienne will be off to Qatar to serve at the Shiek's pleasure.

Saturday was Lazyday and culminated in Cha heading down to Mick O'Shea's with a motley assortment of old friends from Way Back (Duck, Shan, J. Gilooley Gooey, Misty--and Big Red and Leesha as well) while I was obliged to hit Yahtzee's semi-annual Poker Night. I won many big pots, and actually won more than I did because one contestant was down to his last chips and instead of broadcasting my straight I allowed him to take the winnings with his three-of-a-kind because he would have left if he'd been cleaned out; I still came out more than $5 ahead after five hours of poker, so there.

And that's that.