like a vapor this life is just waiting to pass
Yesterday ravens_prentice and I made plans to go see Romero, Phipps' resident corpse flower before it closed.
I left my office a little early after changing from my work blouse into a tank top in anticipation of the warm afternoon outdoor temps. On the way out I passed by the La Prima cart, which had just closed and put out their unsold baked goodies for grabs, so I took a croissant and put it in my bike bag in one of my empty lunch containers. Biked over to Phipps and got the last easy open space in their bike rack.
RomeroWe got to Phipps while it was still relatively unbusy, so it only took a few moments to get to Romero. Sadly, by then it was almost 24 hours from start of bloom by that point, so his spathe was starting to droop, the spadix looked a little flaccid, and the infamous rotten smell was something we had to go actively looking for. We found a couple pockets of space where the fragrance was clearly detectable. To me, it mostly smelled like a combination of rotten eggs and very ripe stinky cheese, occasionally mixed with whiffs of perfume or other nearby people scents. Not actually all that unpleasant, as I was specifically expecting it, although I admit I might not have the same opinion if the odor had been more overwhelming.
We followed this with a pleasant browse-through of other parts of the conservatory, where we saw a mouse carefully beheading blossoms from a beautiful globe amaranth plant, several lovely orchids, and butterflies mating. But we had other evening plans and so decided to make it a short visit and parted ways to find our respective routes home. As we left through the entrance lobby the line had already started growing, and by the time I got out to the road, the traffic was stretching into Oakland from visitors looking for parking places. Guess we timed it right!
I unlocked my bike and pondered changing into shorts before deciding not to bother, and replaced the lid on my croissant container which had fallen loose. Being Wednesday, there was a farmer's market sale active on the lawn, so I walked my bike around to a couple tables to look at heirloom tomato porn and sample flavored honeys, accidentally wrapping my helmet hair around my wheel pretty solidly and breaking one of the hair bands. Oops. Well, I'd been meaning to replace it for a while anyways.
After that, I biked up to Crazy Mocha in Squill where I had decided to drop into the Pittsburgh Eurogames Meetup group finally. Locked up bike out front, grabbed valuables from bag, and went inside to see if there was anybody I knew. Surprisingly, I recognized absolutely nobody, but people were welcoming and I wasn't the only first-time visitor, so I grabbed a frozen fruit drink and got myself added to a game of Terra Mystica that was just starting setup. The game owner warned that it was "complicated" but that didn't scare me, and a glance at the box looked like it was under an hour. I didn't think much of it until we were still explaining rules an hour later and he clarified that actually it was one of those games estimated at "half hour per player" and that's assuming players knew what they were doing. Oops.
Anyways,Terra Mystica up being a really fun and fascinating game, and factors combined so that I didn't feel overwhelmed by the long rules-explaining leadup nor by starting play not fully knowing how to play nor by playing with people I don't remember the names of. We finished play in about 3.5 hours, just a few minutes before 11pm when the shop was closing. I came in a totally respectable third out of four, and would be willing to play it again sometime (which is rare for me in a game lasting that long).
But then it was after 11pm and I hadn't even been home from work yet so I lit up my bike and headed home to grab a quick pasta snack for a late dinner while I caught up on social media and cleaned up a little. Before I went upstairs to bed I went to get my lunch containers out of my bike bag for cleaning and discovered they (and the croissant) were gone. My shorts were still there, as was all the rest of the stuff I had in the other pockets. Weird. I mentally retraced my steps and could not figure out how the croissant could have accidentally disappeared between Phipps and home. I went to bed and dreamed I was a freshman at college again going through orientation, which was normal except that my kids were also freshmen with me.
This morning I retraced my bike route from the previous night and saw no sign of a plastic container that used to contain a croissant. I hope wherever it ended up it was appreciated by someone, and I'm glad that nothing else disappeared. I suppose this is a lesson that I should be more careful about taking my bag in with me or at least being sure I don't mind if things disappear.
Edit: Container was found two days later. Turns out I had come home and taken it out on autopilot without realizing it, and put it in a non-obvious place in the kitchen. Slowly my brain leaks...
This weekend I hope to catch up on things I expected to do last night but didn't because I was playing a fun but long game, like pick up apples, wash things that need washed, run, make new bike helmet bling, and read a book.
I left my office a little early after changing from my work blouse into a tank top in anticipation of the warm afternoon outdoor temps. On the way out I passed by the La Prima cart, which had just closed and put out their unsold baked goodies for grabs, so I took a croissant and put it in my bike bag in one of my empty lunch containers. Biked over to Phipps and got the last easy open space in their bike rack.
RomeroWe got to Phipps while it was still relatively unbusy, so it only took a few moments to get to Romero. Sadly, by then it was almost 24 hours from start of bloom by that point, so his spathe was starting to droop, the spadix looked a little flaccid, and the infamous rotten smell was something we had to go actively looking for. We found a couple pockets of space where the fragrance was clearly detectable. To me, it mostly smelled like a combination of rotten eggs and very ripe stinky cheese, occasionally mixed with whiffs of perfume or other nearby people scents. Not actually all that unpleasant, as I was specifically expecting it, although I admit I might not have the same opinion if the odor had been more overwhelming.
We followed this with a pleasant browse-through of other parts of the conservatory, where we saw a mouse carefully beheading blossoms from a beautiful globe amaranth plant, several lovely orchids, and butterflies mating. But we had other evening plans and so decided to make it a short visit and parted ways to find our respective routes home. As we left through the entrance lobby the line had already started growing, and by the time I got out to the road, the traffic was stretching into Oakland from visitors looking for parking places. Guess we timed it right!
I unlocked my bike and pondered changing into shorts before deciding not to bother, and replaced the lid on my croissant container which had fallen loose. Being Wednesday, there was a farmer's market sale active on the lawn, so I walked my bike around to a couple tables to look at heirloom tomato porn and sample flavored honeys, accidentally wrapping my helmet hair around my wheel pretty solidly and breaking one of the hair bands. Oops. Well, I'd been meaning to replace it for a while anyways.
After that, I biked up to Crazy Mocha in Squill where I had decided to drop into the Pittsburgh Eurogames Meetup group finally. Locked up bike out front, grabbed valuables from bag, and went inside to see if there was anybody I knew. Surprisingly, I recognized absolutely nobody, but people were welcoming and I wasn't the only first-time visitor, so I grabbed a frozen fruit drink and got myself added to a game of Terra Mystica that was just starting setup. The game owner warned that it was "complicated" but that didn't scare me, and a glance at the box looked like it was under an hour. I didn't think much of it until we were still explaining rules an hour later and he clarified that actually it was one of those games estimated at "half hour per player" and that's assuming players knew what they were doing. Oops.
Anyways,Terra Mystica up being a really fun and fascinating game, and factors combined so that I didn't feel overwhelmed by the long rules-explaining leadup nor by starting play not fully knowing how to play nor by playing with people I don't remember the names of. We finished play in about 3.5 hours, just a few minutes before 11pm when the shop was closing. I came in a totally respectable third out of four, and would be willing to play it again sometime (which is rare for me in a game lasting that long).
But then it was after 11pm and I hadn't even been home from work yet so I lit up my bike and headed home to grab a quick pasta snack for a late dinner while I caught up on social media and cleaned up a little. Before I went upstairs to bed I went to get my lunch containers out of my bike bag for cleaning and discovered they (and the croissant) were gone. My shorts were still there, as was all the rest of the stuff I had in the other pockets. Weird. I mentally retraced my steps and could not figure out how the croissant could have accidentally disappeared between Phipps and home. I went to bed and dreamed I was a freshman at college again going through orientation, which was normal except that my kids were also freshmen with me.
This morning I retraced my bike route from the previous night and saw no sign of a plastic container that used to contain a croissant. I hope wherever it ended up it was appreciated by someone, and I'm glad that nothing else disappeared. I suppose this is a lesson that I should be more careful about taking my bag in with me or at least being sure I don't mind if things disappear.
Edit: Container was found two days later. Turns out I had come home and taken it out on autopilot without realizing it, and put it in a non-obvious place in the kitchen. Slowly my brain leaks...
This weekend I hope to catch up on things I expected to do last night but didn't because I was playing a fun but long game, like pick up apples, wash things that need washed, run, make new bike helmet bling, and read a book.