27 September 1999
I had a busy weekend. The few blades of grass that sprouted in our yard had gotten long enough that they needed to be cut, and on Friday we'd gotten a wonderful housewarming gift from Matt's mom in the form of two bags of flower-bulbs (daffodils and tulips) and a bulb planter and a couple of information sheets. (Yay, Jill!)

So Saturday morning Matt and I piled into his van and drove down to the Lowe's, where we bought...

A lawnmower and a small gas can.
Grass seed and a seed spreader.
Two barstools for our breakfast bar, and felt to cover the feet with.
Batteries for our dead flashlight.
Sandpaper.
A bag of hyacinth bulbs.
A tool that looks like a cross between a rake and a hoe and a medieval torture instrument.
Plant food.
A 3-cubic-foot bale of hardwood mulch.

Then we went home and Matt assembled the lawn mower while I went out to get gas for it and my car. When I got back, I gave him the gas can and went to change into some nasty clothes to do yardwork. By the time I'd come back downstairs, Matt had discovered that the gas can sucked - there was no gasket to force the screw-on lid tight, so when he tried to pour the gas into the lawnmower, it dribbled out the base. Argh. I retrieved a funnel from the kitchen that I think I've used once in five years and pronounced it the gasoline funnel. Then I got the rake/hoe thing and went to work loosening the dirt around our bushes while Matt mowed our pathetic lawn.

The topsoil on our lawn is spread pretty thin, so I was still arguing with the clay when Matt finished the backyard and came around the side of the house, the lawnmower belching out more dust than cut grass. (It had been a shiny black lawnmower when we started. By the time he finished, it was pathetic and grey-looking.) We decided to lower the mower blade a bit and try again, and I finished breaking up the ground around the bushes and trees while Matt went around the back a second time.

Then he helped me spread the mulch around the tree and bushes - he poured the mulch out of the bag while I used the rake/hoe thing to even it out and spread it around. Then I decided to plant some bulbs, and he helped - I positioned the bulbs where I wanted them, and then he dug holes. I came behind, dropping a daffodil bulb into each deep hole, half-filling it, placing three hyacinth bulbs around the edges, and finishing the cover. I hope the bulbs manage to deal with that nasty clay we've got all right.

Finally, Matt assembled the grass-seed spreader and re-seeded the front yard. We had a fun fifteen minutes or so setting up the sprinkler so that it would cover the whole front yard without completely drenching the front porch. I got soaked.

After all this fun, we decided we would go into town and pick up our comics, and stop by the William and Mary campus on the way back, to take a picture of K.T.'s giraffe. We were most of the way across town when I realized I'd forgotten my camera. We went ahead and got the comics, and debated whether to just tell K.T. that I'd forgotten my camera and that I'd try again on Sunday.

After we went home and read the comics, we packed up to go to K.T.'s for the evening, and I decided to go ahead and go into campus to take the pictures. So we did.

The Star Wars game was fun, though K.T. hadn't decided on a personality for her character yet. When my characters don't have personality, they're boring and quiet. When KT's characters don't have personality, they're sarcastic and flippant... And Matt ran us through a module in which diplomacy played a huge role! Yike! Oh, well, hopefully she'll decide on a personality for the character before we play again.


Sunday I was feeling bright and energetic, so I finally dug out all the pictures and figured out where I wanted to hang them. Matt humored me by letting me show him where everything was planned and approving the plans. When you're fairly short and trying to hang pictures so that tall people in the house won't feel claustrophobic, you get a fair workout trying to hammer nails above your head. (Not to mention I had to run up and down the stairs about four thousand times for various reasons.) So, though I'd planned on getting out the rest of the decorations when I'd finished with the pictures, it never got done.

When we'd finished with the laundry and the grocery shopping, we went down to my parents' for a couple of hours - we showed up just in time to have B.L.T.s and some four-bean salad for dinner! Then we sat and chatted with them and my brother (he works for a school on the year-round program, so he gets a two-week-long fall break). I told John about the idea I had for my AD&D game, and he thought it was pretty good. We dropped off some stuff my Dad had loaned us, and picked up most of the rest of our wedding presents, leaving behind only some exceptionally delicate and breakable things like crystal candlesticks and cut-glass dishes.


All in all, though busy, it was a very nice weekend. I'm actually ready to be back at work today.

Too bad I'm stuck in testing, still. ::sigh::

I'm collecting stories about a particularly inept tester I'm forced to work near. (I refuse, by ignoring him most of the time, to work directly with him.) When my purgatory there is over, I may post some of the more choice bits. (Hiding his name, of course. He may have relatives who are bright enough to do a web search.) At least most of the rest of the team are pretty cool. Now, if only the supervisor would quit leaning over me and taking the mouse away from me to show me things. Not only do I hate having things done for me, but he smokes some particularly nasty brand of cigarettes, and it's making my allergies flare up.

Ah, well... Into the mouth of the Styx go I...
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