Fun In The Time Of Flooding
So I had a good time last weekend. I went up to Middleton early on the 4th and went out to eat with a friend, and she told me the reasons behind a very important life decision I knew she had made recently. I have mixed feelings about it, but have decided to just trust that she knows what she's doing. We were going to have that discussion out at the lake, but due to the high water, sewage snafus, blue-green algae, and other consequences of flooding, we'll have to do the canoe trip another time. We went to see WALL-E, which we all enjoyed, and heard some "interesting" news about a guy I met because of my friend's wedding 10 years ago. Love is truly blind. After stopping to pick up some booze, we headed over to the very nice condo of an acquaintance who worked with my former roommate and has gone to baseball games with us. I was really impressed with how well the place was decorated, especially because he's one of these straight guys who comes off as a "guys' guy" and really likes to have a good time - in other words, I expected his furniture to be similar to mine. At first everyone was off in little groups doing their own thing, which was fine with me because I had a plateful of salads and chips that required two hands to avoid a mess anyway. There's something awkward about stuffing one's face with really fatty foods and sucking down booze while the people around you are talking about running 5 miles a day and continuing to play soccer and volleyball as adults. After the people outside got tired of being eaten alive by mosquitos and the people inside got bored with playing Guitar Hero, we turned on the Cubs/Cards game, which made me feel a lot more comfortable. Living in Janesville all these years has made me more blunt and macho than I used to be, and taught me all sorts of otherwise useless facts about sports that I can use to fit in better if I wish. My friend and I also had a great conversation with one of the party guests about her insulin pump. She loves talking about it because she's a technology junkie, and I enjoyed hearing everything I'd always wanted to know about them but was way too shy to ask. My friend is hilarious when she's watching the Cubs game - she shouts at the players as if they can hear her through the TV, and really gets into it. I would like to see both the Cubs and Brewers make it to the postseason this year, but am quite a bit more reserved, even at the stadium. There was only one other Brewers fan in the building, but that didn't stop her from talking a little trash.
Once it got dark outside, I learned that the condo is only about 100 feet away from Lake Monona, and we had a pretty good spot to watch the merely adequate fireworks (that explains the giant cloud of mosquitos). I was more interested in the bats flying overhead. All the noise appeared to be interfering with their sonar, poor little things. Others attempted things on the playground equipment that one probably shouldn't after two beers. After the heart-attack-inducing end of the game, there were the Olympic trials, which were a lot more fun to watch with the group's most serious runner doing her own color commmentary on the couch behind me. 4th-of-July TV is usually crap because they assume everyone is outside, so they don't even try. We resorted to watching a disturbing PBS documentary about hot dogs and even a few minutes of a Skinemax flick with "Aliens Gone Wild" in the title before deciding that setting it to a music channel and watching the now quite drunk guys in the other room play poker would be much more entertaining. The party was still going when I left at 2 AM. Even though I didn't know many of the people there and we probably don't have that much in common, I had a great time and was glad I went. Saturday I just rested and caught up on stuff that I had been putting off. Why is it that no matter how many hours we grudgingly put in on stuff that we've been putting off, there's never a time when we're actually caught up?
Sunday was another day for me to stand on the carpet in the basement - now with free powdered horseflies! - and watch a sporting event no one else was interested in. I really don't even know that much about tennis, but I know better than to miss Federer/Nadal when I have a choice about it. Roger played better than he has all year and dragged the match out until it was almost suspended due to darkness despite dropping the first 2 sets, but Rafa finally beat him at Wimbledon for the first time. They were quite a sight at the little photo op at the end. Roger seemed happy as always with his silver platter-like 2nd-place award and his perfect hair and white gold-trimmed metrosexual cardigan, and then there was trophy-biting wedgie-picking Rafa, with his sweat-soaked hair sticking out in every direction, trying to wipe the tears and snot off his face and figure out where his big hands go on the trophy and just generally looking more traumatized than if he'd lost. They remind me of all those classic pairs of rivals in anime that make the best shows so compelling.
So, what's going on for Sci-Fi Friday?
Once it got dark outside, I learned that the condo is only about 100 feet away from Lake Monona, and we had a pretty good spot to watch the merely adequate fireworks (that explains the giant cloud of mosquitos). I was more interested in the bats flying overhead. All the noise appeared to be interfering with their sonar, poor little things. Others attempted things on the playground equipment that one probably shouldn't after two beers. After the heart-attack-inducing end of the game, there were the Olympic trials, which were a lot more fun to watch with the group's most serious runner doing her own color commmentary on the couch behind me. 4th-of-July TV is usually crap because they assume everyone is outside, so they don't even try. We resorted to watching a disturbing PBS documentary about hot dogs and even a few minutes of a Skinemax flick with "Aliens Gone Wild" in the title before deciding that setting it to a music channel and watching the now quite drunk guys in the other room play poker would be much more entertaining. The party was still going when I left at 2 AM. Even though I didn't know many of the people there and we probably don't have that much in common, I had a great time and was glad I went. Saturday I just rested and caught up on stuff that I had been putting off. Why is it that no matter how many hours we grudgingly put in on stuff that we've been putting off, there's never a time when we're actually caught up?
Sunday was another day for me to stand on the carpet in the basement - now with free powdered horseflies! - and watch a sporting event no one else was interested in. I really don't even know that much about tennis, but I know better than to miss Federer/Nadal when I have a choice about it. Roger played better than he has all year and dragged the match out until it was almost suspended due to darkness despite dropping the first 2 sets, but Rafa finally beat him at Wimbledon for the first time. They were quite a sight at the little photo op at the end. Roger seemed happy as always with his silver platter-like 2nd-place award and his perfect hair and white gold-trimmed metrosexual cardigan, and then there was trophy-biting wedgie-picking Rafa, with his sweat-soaked hair sticking out in every direction, trying to wipe the tears and snot off his face and figure out where his big hands go on the trophy and just generally looking more traumatized than if he'd lost. They remind me of all those classic pairs of rivals in anime that make the best shows so compelling.
So, what's going on for Sci-Fi Friday?