Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Dragging Your Asses Through My Weekend

As threatened promised, here’s my post about the weekend just past.  Recognizing the unbearable boredom that will afflict anyone reading the following, I will pepper it with cute little asides that I picked up in pool halls and convents along my misbegotten path.  I apologize in advance, and you’ve been warned.

Last year I vented quite a rant about Valentine’s Day.  I’m not going back there again - in fact, I’m so not going back there that I’m not even going to talk about why, except to say that the power of Eros is alive and potent and I’m more deeply aware and appreciative of it than I have probably ever been in my life.  You want details?  Of course you do.  But instead of details, I’ll just limn a few aspects of this year’s Valentine’s Day weekend as a way to let you know that it’s no picnic being Chuckles - but sometimes it’s worth the effort:

Dude, we are so the droids you’re looking for!

Let us begin with the recognition that cupid was assisted this year by some dead presidents, the one who never lied and the honest one, two paragons of executive virtue so extraordinary that they got their own holidays.  In fact, I got Lincoln’s Birthday AND President’s day off, resulting in several days in a row when I didn’t have to go to work, and instead was able to celebrate a multi-day national love holiday.  I took full advantage of it. 

Choose ignorance.

Painting: We basically finished the study, which is now a sunny provencal blue and yellow instead of a ghastly moribund off-grey.  It will be a good place to do computer work (as I am doing even now, on the desk we finally finished building now that the room has been painted), to hold household planning meetings (which we actually need to have every week), a place where guests can crash overnight, and where we can do yoga if, for some reason, we don’t want to stretch out in the emptyness of the green studio.  Painting the study has been a pending major agenda item for years.  We picked a color scheme together, selected paints together, got supplies, prepped and painted and cleaned up - all as a team, and with hardly any misunderstandings or miscommunications. We have now repossessed the room from the ghosts of former tenants and roommates. By working together with Kel on this project on National Cuddles Day, we reaffirmed a commitment to common plans and shared dreams.  It was a pleasure to do the work, and it’s a joy to be done with it.  But even if it represented a lesser change in our domestic environment - if we’d done something with a smaller impact - the important part was working on it with Kel.  Thanks, hon, for putting up with me - even when I was daubing myself with paint and muttering about the Da Vinci Code and volatile esters.

I put the “pathetic” in “apathetic."

Our VD supper was at a locals-only bistro down in the fancyass Marina District.  The BSB was as cozy as ever; we got a prized corner table; and the prix fixe menu was well-rounded and, as always, delicious.  We had kir royales with our stuffed date salads, and I moved on to a Cote du Rhone to accompany my fillet mignon (Kel went with a rioja and the duck breast); port complimented the desserts: a deadly trio of brandied cherries in a chocolate cup, a dollop of raspberry sorbet, and coeur fondant au chocolat - a tart shaped like a heart, made of two layers of chocolate cake sandwiching some staggeringly tasty cream filling, all dipped in chocolate.  It was like the best Suzy-Q ever made.  And even with all that gluttony and gazing into each others’ eyes we were still home by 7:30 on a Saturday night.  Was that too early?  Yes and no.  Mostly no.  Moving on....

He considered himself the epitome of refinement, debonnaireatude and suaveaciousness.  No one had the heart to tell him that the netted elastic strap was not a hat.

We also took some time this weekend to get some documents executed and some photos taken relative to a plan we’ve been working on for almost exactly one year, according to my rigorously-indexed Franklin planner.  What plans, you ask?  Quiet your inquisitiveness, o my friends.  All in good time.  Suffice it to say, we moved the process along quite significantly - and we had fun doing it.  Okay, in my photo I look like the doctor who’s trying not to giggle as he gives you bad news, like, “I’m sorry Mr. Treadle but your winkie has… (snrk) excuse me.... your winkie has been compromised...” But really, I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.  I play one at racquetball and I kick his ass.  But my photo still looks a bit creepy, in a smirking paternalistic way.  Whatever. 

I read in yesterday’s paper that David Palmer is now Dee Palmer.  I started listening to David Palmer’s music in 8th grade when I “discovered” Jethro Tull, for whom he played keyboards at my first rock-n-roll concert - he’d been their keyboardist from 1976 to 1980, making him a key component to some of my favorite Tull tunes.  I admit freely that I hadn’t followed Palmer’s career much lately - I barely even listen to Tull anymore - but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for her.  Yes, her - the trans-gender process has been concluded and “DP" is now a she.  It doesn’t affect my appreciation of any of the music I’ve loved for so many years, but it does raise troubling questions about all those tights and codpieces.  Luckily, although it struck some of my close friends and even a family member, I’m relieved to say I avoided RenFaire Fever.  I’m not saying that running around on stage in tights and a codpiece will induce transsexualism - but it can’t help.

All this, while I spent the official weekend of presidency and romance bleeding profusely from my lip (cut it shaving), my ear (cut it trimming my hair and godDAMN those puppies can bleed, I barely nicked it and it took most of the day to heal over at all), and various knees, elbows and cuticles, as is my wont.  I also went running, put in 20 brutal minutes on a stationary bike and another 20 on a rowing machine, and got in some superb power yoga.  It was a rich and fulfilling extended weekend, and now I think I’m ready for whatever comes next.  Such as it is. 

Well that was almost painless, wasn’t it?  Tell ya what - y’all are such a great crowd, I’m gonna come back tomorrow with part 1 of a transit tale featuring the second-strangest person I’ve ever had to deal with on the 38L.  Sorry, guys, that’s as sexy as it’s gonna get.  But to make up for it, I’ll type it naked.  At work.  Okay, now you’re paying attention!