Peaceful New Year's Day, despite Houseparty Hijinks
It snowed in the night! We still had some of the snow from the storm before Christmas, but it was starting to get dingy-looking, so a fresh coat was in order. It's only a couple of inches, but it covered up all the ugly spots.
And since we weren't sure if there was going to be a Mass at Holy Trinity today, since the Archbishop seems to order a lot of churches in Boston to close for the on New Year's Day to oblige people to attend *his* Mass at the cathedral (Do not ask me why: it's a dumb rule and we found out about it the hard way), we ended up going to Mass at St. Francis of Assisi's in Dracut (Which wound up being perfect for me, since I wanted to light a candle before their icon of St. Francis, for the intention of the furry companion of a dear friend of mine... I thought of lighting a candle before the statue of St. Francis at St. Joe's in Lowell, but I won't be there till late in the week and I needed to expedite this).
Watched the New Year's Concert from Vienna's Musikverrein (I know I'm spelling that wrong, and my college German proff would be appalled...) on one of the local PBS stations. This has been a tradition for me since I was maybe 8 or 9 (I was and still am a classical music geek, though my tastes have really broadened since then), and it wouldn't be New Years without it. My mom got me into it because often the concerts feature short ballet sequences performed by members of the Vienna Staatsoper Ballet.
Last night we watched "A Knight's Tale", which my buddy Mark had reccommended to me. Okay, it's a little hoky (that rock soundtrack is a little out-of-place, but if you can suspend your disbelief, it falls into place, like the deliberate anachronisms in T.H. White's The Once and Future King), but surprisingly, it captures medieval life fairly well: a lot of our impressions of what medieval life was like come to us from those wretched Victorians and their prim-and-proper sensibilities. You think of the knight defending the fair maiden... well, the fair maiden would probably be able to get a stab or two into her attacker and slow him down, with the little dagger she kept in her belt. The female blacksmith isn't so far-fetched: there were seperate guilds, in the 1200's and 1300's, for men and women of each trade, in many parts of Europe. Who knows? That might have included blacksmithing.
And I successfully opened a bottle of (alcohol-removed) champagne just before midnight last night. Those things are not easy to open without the cork jetting out, but I managed somehow. I suspect that having the Merv in my headspace might have had something to do with it... Who else would know how to uncork a champagne bottle? And since he was in First Iteration mode, naturally, we all had to listen to him grumble about the horrendous anachronisms in "A Knight's Tale".
And I've heard it said that if a tall, dark man is the first person to enter the house in the new year, that it's a sign of good luck to come. But what does it mean if a tall, dark demon hunter and a tall, bleached-blond AI are the first to enter? The Houseparty was having a bonfire in their yard, and the first folks to go back inside the inn they've been sharing were Constantine and Flood, though I think Flood might have gotten a foot in the door a mite quicker. The zanies in my headspace were having a grand old time for themselves, singing, dancing around the bonfire and just cutting loose. Yes, there was plenty of kissing going on at midnight: the Merv and Ref seemed to be going for the world's longest and deepest "soul kiss" on record. Hal just kinda snogged folks indiscriminately, except for Constantine who almost shotgun-smacked him: It's said that making noise at midnight on New Year's Eve scares away evil spirits, so the demon hunter was firing blanks into the air with the Holy Shotgun. If that didn't clear the air, nothing would.
Fortunately, some of the less than welcome guests have left. Argon and his two girls cleared out this morning, despite the fact that Argon was nursing a collossal hangover and being an utter baby about it (what is this with alpha-male Exiles acting that way when their code isn't quite optimal?). Things should be a little quieter around here, especially at night, when the three of them tended to start arguing in their room: sometimes it was Argon vs. Raini the agressive brunette, who shrieks like a harpy; sometimes it was Argon vs. Beryl the slightly ditzy blonde, who'd start crying; and sometimes just for kicks, it would be all three at once. Or we'd hear suspicious bangs and thumps in the night. I'd gladly put up with the Reykmann clan for the rest of the week than those three; the Reykmanns helped out with the cooking/cleaning. We just had to endure Damascene being a brat/Scarlett whining/Solaphine following Flood around like a little lost puppy because she likes him; he wasn't really interested in her because she's not legal yet (even though she's fifteen going on about a hundred, give or take a few decades). The poor guy kept trying to treat her like a kid, but somehow that didn't deter her.
And since we weren't sure if there was going to be a Mass at Holy Trinity today, since the Archbishop seems to order a lot of churches in Boston to close for the on New Year's Day to oblige people to attend *his* Mass at the cathedral (Do not ask me why: it's a dumb rule and we found out about it the hard way), we ended up going to Mass at St. Francis of Assisi's in Dracut (Which wound up being perfect for me, since I wanted to light a candle before their icon of St. Francis, for the intention of the furry companion of a dear friend of mine... I thought of lighting a candle before the statue of St. Francis at St. Joe's in Lowell, but I won't be there till late in the week and I needed to expedite this).
Watched the New Year's Concert from Vienna's Musikverrein (I know I'm spelling that wrong, and my college German proff would be appalled...) on one of the local PBS stations. This has been a tradition for me since I was maybe 8 or 9 (I was and still am a classical music geek, though my tastes have really broadened since then), and it wouldn't be New Years without it. My mom got me into it because often the concerts feature short ballet sequences performed by members of the Vienna Staatsoper Ballet.
Last night we watched "A Knight's Tale", which my buddy Mark had reccommended to me. Okay, it's a little hoky (that rock soundtrack is a little out-of-place, but if you can suspend your disbelief, it falls into place, like the deliberate anachronisms in T.H. White's The Once and Future King), but surprisingly, it captures medieval life fairly well: a lot of our impressions of what medieval life was like come to us from those wretched Victorians and their prim-and-proper sensibilities. You think of the knight defending the fair maiden... well, the fair maiden would probably be able to get a stab or two into her attacker and slow him down, with the little dagger she kept in her belt. The female blacksmith isn't so far-fetched: there were seperate guilds, in the 1200's and 1300's, for men and women of each trade, in many parts of Europe. Who knows? That might have included blacksmithing.
And I successfully opened a bottle of (alcohol-removed) champagne just before midnight last night. Those things are not easy to open without the cork jetting out, but I managed somehow. I suspect that having the Merv in my headspace might have had something to do with it... Who else would know how to uncork a champagne bottle? And since he was in First Iteration mode, naturally, we all had to listen to him grumble about the horrendous anachronisms in "A Knight's Tale".
And I've heard it said that if a tall, dark man is the first person to enter the house in the new year, that it's a sign of good luck to come. But what does it mean if a tall, dark demon hunter and a tall, bleached-blond AI are the first to enter? The Houseparty was having a bonfire in their yard, and the first folks to go back inside the inn they've been sharing were Constantine and Flood, though I think Flood might have gotten a foot in the door a mite quicker. The zanies in my headspace were having a grand old time for themselves, singing, dancing around the bonfire and just cutting loose. Yes, there was plenty of kissing going on at midnight: the Merv and Ref seemed to be going for the world's longest and deepest "soul kiss" on record. Hal just kinda snogged folks indiscriminately, except for Constantine who almost shotgun-smacked him: It's said that making noise at midnight on New Year's Eve scares away evil spirits, so the demon hunter was firing blanks into the air with the Holy Shotgun. If that didn't clear the air, nothing would.
Fortunately, some of the less than welcome guests have left. Argon and his two girls cleared out this morning, despite the fact that Argon was nursing a collossal hangover and being an utter baby about it (what is this with alpha-male Exiles acting that way when their code isn't quite optimal?). Things should be a little quieter around here, especially at night, when the three of them tended to start arguing in their room: sometimes it was Argon vs. Raini the agressive brunette, who shrieks like a harpy; sometimes it was Argon vs. Beryl the slightly ditzy blonde, who'd start crying; and sometimes just for kicks, it would be all three at once. Or we'd hear suspicious bangs and thumps in the night. I'd gladly put up with the Reykmann clan for the rest of the week than those three; the Reykmanns helped out with the cooking/cleaning. We just had to endure Damascene being a brat/Scarlett whining/Solaphine following Flood around like a little lost puppy because she likes him; he wasn't really interested in her because she's not legal yet (even though she's fifteen going on about a hundred, give or take a few decades). The poor guy kept trying to treat her like a kid, but somehow that didn't deter her.