Holiday weekend ketchup
Had very busy weekend, though it rarely seemed like it at any given moment.
Friday/Saturday:
Bill picked me up from work Friday afternoon, and we set out to brave the traffic through LA. Sat in car talking, singing along with the radio and reading Anubis Gates (the thlot continues to picken, as Mr. Bill says...I continue to be deeply pleased that I've finally found an author who can lead Mr. Bill and his amazing ability to guess what's next a merry chase).
Booze: Thanks to mr. Bill's superior planning skills, we reached Solvang with plenty of time for dinner and a visit to our favorite tasting bar (read "the only one we ever visit because we know we like it and we fear change). Sweet wine and beer tasting = love. Got a bottle of a rosy, sparkling wine apparently called Stella Rosa because it was yummy beyond words.
Food: Went to dinner at a little Mexican place which, because it is located in Solvang, still uses the obligatory Danish decor, mixed with the sombreros and terracotta that one expects to accompany Mexican cuisine. I had a carnita-topped salad, to which I utterly failed to do justice (I ate maybe a fifth of it and was full...it was a very large salad). Mr. Bill had enchiladas and horchata, about which he raved. After dinner, enough of the alcohol had worn off for us to take ourselves back to our sumptuous motel suite (a single, spare room with bath that was ridiculously expensive, despite the fact that the door was a stone's throw from the freeway) to watch "What Not to Wear" and fall asleep reasonably early, the better to rise early (well, early for a weekend, anyway). We had to get up early so that we could have ableskivers for breakfast at The Little Mermaid before making our way to Tie-Dye University for the much-talked-about fencing tournament.
Non-existent Fencing Tournament: As it turns out, Tie-Dye U decided to a) unknowingly schedule a fund-raiser fencing tournament on Memorial Day weekend, b) put out flyers for said tournament at every major fencing event since the beginning of the year, c) realize that every senior staff member on campus would be gone the day of the tournament because, duh, it's Memorial Day weekend, so there probably won't be that many fencers showing up for it, anyway, d) cancel the tournament, and e) tell no one.
So...no fencing. Wah. Mr. Bill and I were disappointed, but otherwise pretty philosophical about the whole thing, since we had enjoyed the trip up and could very easily find something else to do with the time we had planned to spend at the tournament. I felt much worse for some of the other fencers who were likewise thwarted, most of whom had gotten up at some ridiculous hour that morning in order to drive six hours for a canceled tournament. A group of lady epeeists from San Diego suggested that we charge the check-in counter of the rec-center with our weapons and see if strips and scoring equipment were subsequently forthcoming, but it was decided that this would more than likely result in criminal charges.
So instead of fencing, Bill and I walked on the pier at a nearby beach before deciding to just head in the direction of home. On the way home we stopped in Orange for lunch and antiquing (pronounced "an-tee-cue-ing") to further make up for the lack of fencing. So it was a good little 24-hour trip, even if there wasn't any stabbing involved.
Sunday: The usual church and singing, then lunch at the Wood Grill in honor of green_tea_lady and girlwslingshot's birthdays. Had tri-tip and baby-back ribs, both of which were delicious, as usual. When I am rich, I plan to convert all of my atheist friends to Christianity by dint of buying them all dinner at the Wood Grill. You cannot eat their ribs and sweet baked beans and still insist that there is no God. Presents and beer followed at the Herring household, and we watched "Boondock Saints" which started out awesome, but deteriorated rapidly after Willem Defoe turned up in full drag. *shivers* Had a BLT dinner with the in-laws to dull the horror of having to see Willem in lipstick and fishnets.
Monday: Slept until a fairly wicked hour of the late morning. Had breakfast and helped with a little housework. Started reading Grim Tuesday by Garth Nix. Went to see X-Men 3(review coming soon, I hope). Made baked, breaded chicken (recipe also to come, if I remember). Actually went to bed on time, for a change (go me!).
Also: New default icon. If my mad elvish skillz have no completely abandoned me, it should show my username in Tengwar script and a nifty feathery texture that I felt went neatly with my username's elvish meaning (sun-feather). (ETA: It has been pointed out by educated parties that I may have used the wrong mode for the placement of the vowel diacritics. This may very well be the case, as I haven't brushed up on this stuff in years, and I think I accidentally used a Westron/English mode, even though my username is technically Quenya, so it should be written vowel first, consonant second instead of the other way 'round. However, I have decided that I probably won't change the icon because I am lazy, and anyway Tolkien kept changing the rules about vowel placement until he died, so there's precedent in his own manuscripts for just about any mode one can think of.
Also, lemonlye's Tengwar icon uses the same mode, which I think officially makes the consonant-first-carried-vowel-second mode the Official LJ Icon Mode. *nods with finality*)
The end.
Friday/Saturday:
Bill picked me up from work Friday afternoon, and we set out to brave the traffic through LA. Sat in car talking, singing along with the radio and reading Anubis Gates (the thlot continues to picken, as Mr. Bill says...I continue to be deeply pleased that I've finally found an author who can lead Mr. Bill and his amazing ability to guess what's next a merry chase).
Booze: Thanks to mr. Bill's superior planning skills, we reached Solvang with plenty of time for dinner and a visit to our favorite tasting bar (read "the only one we ever visit because we know we like it and we fear change). Sweet wine and beer tasting = love. Got a bottle of a rosy, sparkling wine apparently called Stella Rosa because it was yummy beyond words.
Food: Went to dinner at a little Mexican place which, because it is located in Solvang, still uses the obligatory Danish decor, mixed with the sombreros and terracotta that one expects to accompany Mexican cuisine. I had a carnita-topped salad, to which I utterly failed to do justice (I ate maybe a fifth of it and was full...it was a very large salad). Mr. Bill had enchiladas and horchata, about which he raved. After dinner, enough of the alcohol had worn off for us to take ourselves back to our sumptuous motel suite (a single, spare room with bath that was ridiculously expensive, despite the fact that the door was a stone's throw from the freeway) to watch "What Not to Wear" and fall asleep reasonably early, the better to rise early (well, early for a weekend, anyway). We had to get up early so that we could have ableskivers for breakfast at The Little Mermaid before making our way to Tie-Dye University for the much-talked-about fencing tournament.
Non-existent Fencing Tournament: As it turns out, Tie-Dye U decided to a) unknowingly schedule a fund-raiser fencing tournament on Memorial Day weekend, b) put out flyers for said tournament at every major fencing event since the beginning of the year, c) realize that every senior staff member on campus would be gone the day of the tournament because, duh, it's Memorial Day weekend, so there probably won't be that many fencers showing up for it, anyway, d) cancel the tournament, and e) tell no one.
So...no fencing. Wah. Mr. Bill and I were disappointed, but otherwise pretty philosophical about the whole thing, since we had enjoyed the trip up and could very easily find something else to do with the time we had planned to spend at the tournament. I felt much worse for some of the other fencers who were likewise thwarted, most of whom had gotten up at some ridiculous hour that morning in order to drive six hours for a canceled tournament. A group of lady epeeists from San Diego suggested that we charge the check-in counter of the rec-center with our weapons and see if strips and scoring equipment were subsequently forthcoming, but it was decided that this would more than likely result in criminal charges.
So instead of fencing, Bill and I walked on the pier at a nearby beach before deciding to just head in the direction of home. On the way home we stopped in Orange for lunch and antiquing (pronounced "an-tee-cue-ing") to further make up for the lack of fencing. So it was a good little 24-hour trip, even if there wasn't any stabbing involved.
Sunday: The usual church and singing, then lunch at the Wood Grill in honor of green_tea_lady and girlwslingshot's birthdays. Had tri-tip and baby-back ribs, both of which were delicious, as usual. When I am rich, I plan to convert all of my atheist friends to Christianity by dint of buying them all dinner at the Wood Grill. You cannot eat their ribs and sweet baked beans and still insist that there is no God. Presents and beer followed at the Herring household, and we watched "Boondock Saints" which started out awesome, but deteriorated rapidly after Willem Defoe turned up in full drag. *shivers* Had a BLT dinner with the in-laws to dull the horror of having to see Willem in lipstick and fishnets.
Monday: Slept until a fairly wicked hour of the late morning. Had breakfast and helped with a little housework. Started reading Grim Tuesday by Garth Nix. Went to see X-Men 3(review coming soon, I hope). Made baked, breaded chicken (recipe also to come, if I remember). Actually went to bed on time, for a change (go me!).
Also: New default icon. If my mad elvish skillz have no completely abandoned me, it should show my username in Tengwar script and a nifty feathery texture that I felt went neatly with my username's elvish meaning (sun-feather). (ETA: It has been pointed out by educated parties that I may have used the wrong mode for the placement of the vowel diacritics. This may very well be the case, as I haven't brushed up on this stuff in years, and I think I accidentally used a Westron/English mode, even though my username is technically Quenya, so it should be written vowel first, consonant second instead of the other way 'round. However, I have decided that I probably won't change the icon because I am lazy, and anyway Tolkien kept changing the rules about vowel placement until he died, so there's precedent in his own manuscripts for just about any mode one can think of.
Also, lemonlye's Tengwar icon uses the same mode, which I think officially makes the consonant-first-carried-vowel-second mode the Official LJ Icon Mode. *nods with finality*)
The end.