Beowabbit

After the fabulous closing night of Lysistrata and a wonderful birthday party for surrealestate and DD's darling Tadpole, plumtreeblossom and I were crossing the street this evening when we were hit by a car. It was making a left turn into the street we were crossing; the driver had probably slowed for the turn but didn't seem to slow at all to avoid hitting us; he did pull over a ways down the block and come back. There were lots of witnesses, among them anomie666 who happened to be on a bus that was passing and who stayed with us through the whole evening. He is a wonderful person and he deserves a medal and some really good Scotch.

All the emergency vehicles (at least two police cars, a fire truck, an ambulance, and eventually the tow truck to take away the driver's car since he left in other accommodation) had enough flashing colored lights for a Somerville Christmas. We declined the ambulance since we were just a few blocks from the hospital and the paramedics wanted to put us in back and neck braces and that seemed over the top (neither of us had hit our heads or had spine pain). anomie666 walked with us to the hospital.

The ER experience was quite good; everybody was very nice and we were treated very well. We both got lots of X-rays. I got the brunt of the impact, but I'm just banged up a lot and swollen and bruised. plumtreeblossom has a small fracture in her elbow (a radial head fracture), probably from when she landed. (I was thrown over the hood of the car, into plumtreeblossom who was also clipped by the car.) They gave her a splint and a sling, which is going to be a hassle for a while. We're both on industrial-strength ibuprofen and I'll be icing for a while. (Fortunately, plumtreeblossom had some bags of edamame in the freezer. :-)

Well, it wasn't the evening we were expecting, but at least we spent it together. plumtreeblossom, I love you through thick and thin.

A couple of no doubt haphazard and unrelated observations:

1. My cat hasn’t been getting enough attention lately. (I can tell because when I come home she’s very clingy, and tries to distract me and get between me and whatever I’m doing if it isn’t paying attention to her, like, say, putting away groceries.)
2. Blueberries are surprisingly difficult and time-consuming to sweep up from the kitchen floor, and the hallway floor, and the living-room floor, especially when you’re a bit frazzled about getting the Zipcar back on time.

I have done many fun things lately (most of them with plumtreeblossom). In no particular order:

• Saw The Social Network and The King’s Speech. Both were great and had very good (if very different) acting. The King’s Speech led to a lot of poking around on the net looking up historical information and finding actual recordings of speeches (see comments) by George VI (including the eponymous one) and Edward VIII.
• Got together with desiringsubject and plumtreeblossom and a few other people after work a couple times for drinks and had an epically lovely time.
• Had my weekly dinner with cathijosephine (having had to cancel the previous week). Since the weather was so terrible and plumtreeblossom had had a rough and very wet and cold day at work, I asked if she could join us so she could decompress from the day (and get a ride and not have to trudge through the snow and ice), and that was lovely.
• Saw gilana and ladrescher in The Vagina Monologues. This ended up with a delightful bonus: We ran into joyeous at the show, and went out to Grendel’s afterwards. (Maybe sometime I’ll get my picture of the snow koala we saw on our way up; in the meantime, if you follow joyeous on Twitter or Facebook you can see her photo of it. Too cute!)
• Went to surrealestate and DD’s for games, and played Dominion for the first time in a very long time, and had a wonderful time. It’s so wonderful to have DD local again!
• Continued to enjoy owning a car again.

Another wonderful thing I have been doing a lot of is sleeping! I’ve always had a problem getting enough sleep, but lately I’ve been managing to get to sleep earlier than usual, and sleep late on weekends, and I’m feeling much better rested than usual. (Not that surrealestate and DD would have noticed this the other night. :-) I wonder if all the snow I’ve been having to shovel might have something to do with how well I’ve been sleeping. :-/

So in general, I am feeling very good. I am, however, not so thrilled these days with living on this side of the river. Anybody wanna buy half of a duplex in Quincy with a garage and ample off-street parking?

(Sorry for poor formatting; I appear to have lost the ability to type angle brackets on my phone.)

Went out to Western Mass with plumtreeblossom this weekend to attend the wedding of surrealestate and DDL. (Much of it, at any rate — for complicated reasons I ended up making myself useful with cupcakes during the actual ceremony.) We had a great time, and it was wonderful to meet so many of their family members, and it was nifty to get to break in the new car with a long trip. (Although I should get the brakes looked at.)

surrealestate and DDL, we love you, and we were so happy to see you so happy and to get to celebrate your life together!

Sorry for my extreme radio-silence lately. I’ve been mostly sort of keeping up with other people’s LiveJournal posts (albeit with more skimming than usual), but I haven’t had time or brainpower to post or do much commenting. Anyway, since I’m sure you all are wondering whether I’m still alive, here’s some of what I’ve been up to lately:

Home repairs: Just after cathijosephine moved out, the bath surround (the panels on the wall around the bathtub) fell off. Well, large bits of it did, anyway. It had never been all that convinced it wanted to be attached to the wall, and it gave up. I had been thinking for a very long time (since before I moved in, come to think of it) of pulling it off and repairing whatever damage it had been put up to cover, but had never gotten around to it, in part because it involves not being able to use the shower for extended periods of time due to wating for various bits to dry. Anyway, since I didn’t have a housemate for a bit (anybody want to move in? Quincy’s got lots of history and lots of yummy restaurants! Won’t be available for a bit yet, though.) I decided I’d go ahead and try that. As is the way with these things, it quickly became a much larger project than I expected it to. It was just three days ago (after starting the project about a month ago, although of course I’ve been working on it in spurts) that I finally had a day where I left the bathroom looking better than when I started.

This has all taken a lot longer because of not having a working car any more, so when I discover I don’t have the right tool or I didn’t get enough tile adhesive, I need to either carry stuff on the T (and on the walk home from the T) or rent a Zipcar. (I have to say, I’m really enjoying using Zipcar. But still, it means having to plan stuff in advance.)

Theater: As I did last year, I’m rehearsal-assisting for plumtreeblossom’s show in the summer one-act festival at Theatre@First. Unlike last year, I’m also going to be on the run crew, which I don’t think I’ve ever done. Means I can’t sit in the audience for the actual performances, but it means I get to be on stage, albeit with the lights dimmed. Also unlike last year, the show plumtreeblossom is directing is one she wrote herself! My darling is having her début as a playwright! I’ve read a bunch of short stories she got published before I met her and really enjoyed them, but this is the first substantial writing she’s done since I’ve known her, and I’m thrilled to see her getting back into it. It is a really funny show being put on by very talented actors and it’s going to be a blast! Many of the other one-acts are also really funny too, including the one being directed by surrealestate (who is directing for the first time, if I’m not misremembering). I am really really looking forward to this and you should all come see it.

plumtreeblossom: Things continue to be delightful in my relationship with plumtreeblossom! We have lots of wonderful dates and delightful times. Tomorrow we are going to see Up for the third time. :-) Her cat Rowley who had been frighteningly skinny for a while has been putting on weight, which is really encouraging. We’d already been mentally preparing to lose him. Not sure if the subcutaneous fluids the vet has her giving him are what made the difference or not, but he’s doing a lot better.

Work: Work is busy, but rewarding, and I feel like I’m accomplishing stuff (although projects in IT, as in homeownership, tend to take several times as long as you think they should).

cathijosephine: I’m delighted that I’m still seeing lots of cathijosephine despire her having moved out. We’ve been trying to have dinner together once a week (often with darxus and m_c_t if he’s in town, and sometimes with xmelancholia). Chickenfinger (her cat) has adapted really well to moving back to her condo; we were both worried she’d be upset about moving back to a much smaller space, but she had no trouble adjusting at all.

(Other than seeing a lot of plumtreeblossom and her housemate, cathijosephine and her partners, and the Firsties, I’m feeling a bit undersocialized and missing my friends. Have been popping my head in at some lovely parties though, at one of which I got to catch a glimpse of the delightful weegoddess during a visit this side of the pond.)

I feel like there’s been other important stuff over the past few weeks, but I’ve run out of brain so I’m going to stop for now.

Awesome girlfriend! Well, you know plumtreeblossom, right? I don’t need to tell you how awesome she is. But I will mention that last night she gave me a gorgeous light PURPLE V-neck sweater. And it’s purple! And it looks great on me! Not only that, it’s purple!

(She also gave me a beautiful purple dress shirt, but unfortunately it’s size L in Twinks’, and I am not a twink. “There’s a big difference between gay boys and bi boys, and it’s about 80 pounds.” So it has to get exchanged before you can see how gorgeous I look in it. The sweater was also size L and fit perfectly.)

And she cooked me breakfast! She makes the best breakfast! She puts extra love in it. And bacon.

So when I trudged home from work, I knew I was going to have to dump my stuff and go out and shovel the walk and the driveway for forty minutes or an hour. Only when I got home, I discovered that cathijosephine out shovelling the driveway, having already cleared off the sidewalk. I grabbed a shovel and helped, but it was the difference between getting a nice little workout to warm you up and then going in and relaxing versus being wet and miserable and tired and overheated, and she had already done at least half of it when I got there. I have an awesome housemate.

Also happy to have darxus here tonight; it’s been nice chatting with him.

Weather, traffic, and my car’s engine permitting, I will get to see plumtreeblossom briefly tomorrow morning on her way to visit her family.

Life is really pretty good.

Oops. You know that giant thunderstorm we just had?

My car windows and sunroof were wide open for it.

My drive to Methuen this evening is going to be, um, damp.

Kind of tired by the end of the workday. Need to pack for Arisia. Take T home. Stop on way to have dinner. Arrive in Quincy Center. Walk home from T station.

Where car?

Oh. Drove to T station in morning. Left car at T station.

Maybe now is time to walk back to T station.

The disturbing thing is that this is not the first time I’ve done that.

So, I’ve had a lovely last week-and-some, involving all five elements (Water, Fire, Earth, Air, and of course Quintessence). plumtreeblossom and I have had some wonderful dates, including a trip to Waterfire in Providence with the wonderful lilbjorn and his partner and some friends, and my first (but not last) visit to Fire + Ice. (Waterfire was beautiful and romantic; Fire + Ice was yummy.) I got to get together with cathijosephine for the last in a series of free classical concerts outside by the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade. (I’m thinking that counts as Earth, Air, and since we were next to the river, more Water.) The concert included an excellent version of Beethoven’s Pastorale symphony, Handel’s Water Music, Respighi’s The Birds, and an interesting composition for orchestra and recorded whale song. And plumtreeblossom and I had a fabulous time at sunspiral and roozle’s always-awesome End of Summer party, where I discovered that somebody I work with plays guitar and piano. And I got to see merinslips and E. and elusiveat.

So I’d like to write a lot more about that, but what I’m going to write about instead is last night. My car has still been making funny noises when I turn the steering wheel since I took it in (for that and the brakes) a couple months ago. I called the garage up a few days ago and the person I spoke to said it almost certainly wasn’t anything to worry about since the mechanics wouldn’t have given it back to me without saying anything if it was a problem, but just to be sure I should bring it back for them to look at. Yesterday during the day that just wasn’t an errand I really felt like doing, and I almost skipped it. But I didn’t, sadly. I was delayed by Fenway game traffic near work, so I barely got there in time (they close at 7). The lot was very crowded, but I found a place to leave the car (blocking one of their gates, but that’s not a problem since they’re used to playing automotive Tetris) and filled out the paperwork, and they were nice enough to drive me to Davis so I didn’t have to walk the half hour to Porter.

As I was walking toward the taquería where I was meeting elusiveat, it occurred to me that I remembered thinking about giving them my car key, I even remembered taking it out of my pocket before having to put it back in so I could fill out paperwork, but I didn’t remember actually giving them my car key. Which was indeed in my pocket. And my car was blocking their access to many of the other cars they needed to work on. Oy. I called them, and the recommendation was to put the key in a tupperware container (which I didn’t have anywhere nearer than Quincy) and throw it over the fence and hope it lands near the office. So unfortunately I was a bit distracted while I was having dinner with elusiveat because I was worried about the key situation. (Sorry, elusiveat!) Had a lovely time catching up with her anyway. Then I discovered that the closest thing I could find to a tupperware container in Davis Square at that hour was a baby bottle. Took the T to Porter Square, and walked what turned out to be 35 minutes one way to the garage (talking a bit on the phone with plumtreeblossom on the way), tossed the key with its note in the baby bottle across the fence, and SCORE! it landed right by the office door, did not fall in a ditch, did not roll under a car, and did not break any windows! As I SMSed plumtreeblossom, I should join the NBA.

Then it was another 35min walk back to Porter Square for the train ride home. (Oh, did I mention that “due to switching problems at JFK/UMass, we are running with delays between JFK/UMass and Alewife”?)

An hour and a ten minutes’ extra walk is actually a really good thing, but maybe not when you’re not expecting it and you’d really rather be at home doing a little bit of cleaning and climbing into bed. I had other plans for that hour and ten minutes.

By the way, I really, really like my garage: ABJ Automotive in Somerville. They’re totally worth walking an hour for.

I forgot to mention last night that I have fallen in lust with sionnagh’s car. It’s a 2000 Honda Insight hybrid (a two-seater), it’s comfy (for me, but probably not for zzbottom or docorion), it drives great, and it seems to get around 53mpg. I want one. Evidently 2006 was the last model year they made them, but I couldn’t afford a new one anyway. Not that I can afford a used one, either, but the next time I can spend that kind of money on a used car, which will be, I dunno, maybe 2049, when I will be 82, I’m definitely getting one.

Then of course I’ll need to get a pickup truck to help people move and for camping trips and big grocery runs. The Insight is wee. (And sexy, like certain other wee things of my acquaintance.)