Friday evening KT and Kevin came over, and we all went out to dinner and then Kevin made a character for my AD&D game. Saturday was nice - a quiet, lazy day for the most part, until about 6:30.
Because KT and Kevin's apartment is so close to water, mold grows there at an astonishing rate - even on just standing water. Both Matt and Mike had mentioned to me in passing that they had some problems with it, so I suggested we move my game at least to our house. Our living room isn't quite as spacious as theirs, but since Greg is on an enforced hiatus from gaming of at least six months (or until his doctors figure out just what's wrong with him) then we fit reasonably well.
(Mike and I had contemplated bringing everyone in to our office to game - there's a table in one of the labs that would be perfect for gaming - but decided we'd probably get in pretty big trouble for bringing people in without permission, and we didn't think we'd be able to get permission, either. Oh, well.)
Anyway, my game seemed to go relatively well. They explored the underground ruins, there was combat, I got Kevin's character introduced to the party. I was a little concerned about letting Kevin into the game - he's said before he doesn't really like AD&D all that much, so he was just joining the game because that's what KT was doing. But Sunday morning he caught me on Instant Messenger and asked me several questions that indicated that he was at least interested in things.
Sunday morning Matt and I mostly lazed around the house. We did the laundry, and watched some TV, and I read when I wasn't staring blankly into space. (Yes, I'm feeling much better today, thanks.) Early afternoon, we drove down to my parents' house, and from there went to the Hellenic center not far from KT and Kevin's apartment for the annual Hellenic festival.
The food was good, even if the guy serving it only gave me one skewer of chicken for my souvlaki. There was a room full of arts and crafts, and I wound up talking myself into buying an Oriental carved-cork landscape.
I've always loved cork carvings - their implicit delicacy and detail. My parents have one that was given to them by my grandparents, and I used to stand in front of it and just marvel at the tiny details and wonder how it was done. The booth had some little tiny carvings, in boxes no bigger than my hand, and I might have bought several of those except that the work wasn't very good, and the figures had been painted, while I prefer the plain cork. There was a medium-sized display in an oval case maybe a foot wide and nine inches tall. That was the one I thought I'd buy, but when I picked it up to look at it, broken-off pieces shifted in the bottom. The longer I looked, the more broken pieces I saw. I asked the vendor if he had another one in his stock that wasn't damaged, but he didn't. He offered me a reduction in price to make up for it, but I didn't really want a damaged scene.
Which left me staring at the biggest one, two feet wide and almost a foot tall. I wandered around the rest of the show whimpering and whining, and finally came to the conclusion that I'd be mad at myself if I didn't buy the darn thing. I examined it closely, and only found one small piece broken off and resting in the bottom - everything else seemed to be in good order. I'm sure I paid a lot more for it than it's worth - such is the nature of the show - but I'm happy with it, at least.
Matt and I also picked up some boxes of Greek pastries - an assortment of nut-and-honey treats and a box of cookies. And then we went back to my parents' for a while. We called my brother and I got to talk to him for a little while. His wedding is in a little more than a month, and he's appropriately wound up. Dad described for him, and showed me, Mom's latest kitchen disaster.
Their stove has a grill on one side, basically two plates of cast-iron bars that fit over a heating element the length of the stove. The grill takes the place of two normal burners. Mom had been cooking something - I'm not sure what - and a grease-fire had caught. Mom decided to just let the fire burn itself out.
I wished I'd brought my camera. The bars on one of the plates had melted and sagged. Cast iron! It was a thing of beauty. I'm going to take my camera the next time I go, I promise, because you have to see this to believe it.
Anyway, after we got off the phone, it was getting chilly and Matt and I remembered we'd left our laundry unfinished, so we headed home. We watched the season premiere of Sex and the City, which I think is a great show, and then got ready for bed, and then just as Matt was shutting the computer down, he remembered: the laundry!
Being the wonderful sweet guy that he is, he volunteered to sit up while the laundry was finishing. I guess that means I should volunteer to put it away, huh?
Word of the Day: senescence - the state or process of becoming old
I think I'm going to cut my hair. Well, have it cut. Not really short, but to my shoulders. I've been itching for something new for a while, and I've had the same haircut, more or less, since I was in high school. The trick is to find a style that's easy to care for and style and which won't make me look like I'm trying to be younger than I am. Of course, I don't want to look like I'm leaping into my senescence, either, but I think I'm safe there as long as I don't get a short, puffy perm.
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