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Valentine
Your hair may be brushed, but your mind's
untidy,
You've had about seven hours' sleep since Friday,
No wonder you feel that lost sensation;
You're sunk from a riot of relaxation.
-- Ogden Nash
Sunday, February 15, 1998
Friday the thirteenth: I had lunch with my friend Tom Lawrence. (I wish he'd put up a web page of his own. I may have to write a profile of him, just to have something to link to!) This was not arranged ahead of time, but I see Tom fairly often at lunch since he works in an adjoining building. He has quite a sweet tooth; his choice of dessert was "decorate your own cookies," and the ratio of frosting to cookie on his plate was about 300 percent frosting by weight. He told me of his plans to attend the MS singles pf valentines party, with a group of four women! He told me the results of this when we met up Saturday night.
From there we walked to the conference room in the cafeteria building (the only large-sized room for group events in our little complex on the MS campus) and saw what they call a "brown bag" presentation (meaning you are allowed to bring your lunch into the room). The topic was some new stuff we are putting in a future version of my product, so I can't say any more except to say that it's very cool and interesting! Tom was uncomfortable because he had forgotten to bring a notebook, so I loaned him mine. It turned out that he didn't write anything down anyway. I was even able to ask an intelligent question, which pleased me given that the topic of the presentation was rather technical.
I passed the front desk of our building on the way back to my office, and saw all the flowers and things that had been delivered for St. Valentine's Day. When I looked at my email back at my desk, I was very pleased and surprised to see a message from the receptionist: "You have flowers at the front desk."!! So I went and picked up this very nice bouquet of tulips from Jason! I really was not expecting this, especially since I had plans to see him that evening, and on Saturday which was actually St. Valentine's Day. Note: the larger version of this image gives a good view of the type of Freddie Baer t-shirt that I wear very often.
As the afternoon drew to a close, I was ready and anxious to go. But just as I was getting ready to leave, I got pulled into a meeting where we were brainstorming about which features would be demonstrable (demo-able?) at a team meeting a week from Monday. I wanted to be involved in this, because helping coordinate the demo will be a chance for me to be visible doing something other than working on our team website (which is important but gets no respect). But I was so eager to be gone! Luckily, the meeting only took a half an hour.
So I had plenty of time to stop off in the locker room in the garage, and change my t-shirt for a lacy black top. I was already wearing my short denim skirt, my black lace-up boots, and one of my new bras. (Real Audio required, I think). This outfit got a good reaction later!
* * * * * * * *
Of course, I got to Jason's too early anyway, so I listened to the radio in my car. Jason and his friend Chris arrived about twenty minutes later. I brought the flowers inside with me.
Chris and I talked about his plans to become an MCSE. A worthy goal, which can only help in getting jobs! Jason's friend Angie was the next to arrive. She took a nap while waiting until the other folks showed up. But it turned out that they all flaked out or had conflicts, so the role-playing game went on with only Jason as game master and Chris and Angie as the two players. (They sent the other characters off-stage till next time.) Jason really enjoyed the acting and improvisation that he got to "in character" when the players were questioning him.
My role was to observe the gaming and see if this is something I want to be involved in. I'd say I'm not unfamiliar with this sort of game, but I hadn't ever actually been in the room while it was going on. I have read accounts from other journalers like Liralen and the Admirable Burr, though. I'd say the odds look good that I'll be joining.
* * * * * * * *
Saturday, St. Valentine's Day: In the morning, I gave Jason his valentine. This is what I had been working on rubberstamping on Wednesday night. I stamped and colored an outer space scene (one of Jason's current favorite computer games is an outer space shoot-em-up) and add the touching phrase "Jason, you are out of this world!" I also had bought a plant, a heart-leaved philodendron. This was perfect, both because of the heart-shaped leaves, and because Jason has a dead ficus tree in his apartment that he had expressed an interest in covering with vines. The philodendron will do the job, and live in the low-light conditions that prevail in the apartment.
We cuddled and watched TV on the life-sucking living-room couch (extremely low to the ground and uncomfortable), munching nutragrain bars for breakfast. We decided to catch an early movie, The Wedding Singer, which stars Adam Sandler. This actor is one of Jason's favorites. I like his humor and songs, but I don't think I've seen any of his movies in the theater before. The movie was funny and sweet, and I don't know how Drew Barrymore could be any cuter.
There followed a bunch of stops: Half-Price Books, and then Jason said he was hungry, despite the nutragrain bars of a few hours earlier, and a large tub of popcorn in the movie. So we went to one of my favorites, Taco Time, and had a combo meal each. Then to my place to pick up a large mirror to be used at the evening's Cacophony event, then a stop at Fred Meyer to buy posterboard, then over to Nick's place.
* * * * * * * *
For the encore performance of "Lincoln Sees his Shadow and Falls in Love", a shadow puppet play that combines all February holidays, we needed to reconstruct the puppets. They hadn't survived the span of time since we had orginally written and performed this piece. To make things easier, I had stopped at the Display and Costume Supply store a few nights ago and gotten a cut-out cupid and hawaiian dancer (to portray the part of Lincoln's love/shadow). But there were still other characters to draw and cut out, and the rigging of the screen (a sheet on long poles) had to be engineered. Thank heavens we had Tom Lawrence there! His practical mind went to work and solved many problems. He reported that the singles party he went to the night before was great!
Finally it was time to go and perform on the streets of the University District. To my surprise, Nick's idea of using my large round mirror to relect light -- from a floodlight that normally illuminates a building -- onto our screen, really worked! Nick, Tom, and Tobin were puppeteers; Jason, Eric, and Christina read the script. Jason (I like that leather jacket!) did two different voices: the narrating character, George Washington's wooden teeth; and a militaristic jailor. Eric read the part of Abraham Lincoln, and Christina was both St. Valentine (Italian accent, since he's a Roman Saint) and the groundhog (Canadian accent, just because she can). Jason also provided music by playing the panpipes he bought the other day (clearly visible in the larger image). My role was to kibitz and applaud for our first two performances. The third was in a storefront doorway, and I had to hold up the flashlights to illuminate the screen from behind.
After our third performance, we decided to stop while we were still enjoying it, and walk up the street for ice cream. There wasn't enough room for us all to be inside the Haagen-Daz store, so we were standing the corner and eating our ice cream when a man walked up and said "I saw it." We thought he meant that he had watched the play, so we gave him a copy of our newsletter. But his subsequent remarks made it clear that he was really Non-sequiter man, given to interjecting random sentences about sheltered riverbanks and government plots into any conversation. We were glad that he seemed calm and happy, despite his confusion, since the last nut that approached us at a Cacophony event was kind of scary.
We were back at Jason's place early, and we watched an impulse-buy video I had grabbed at Fred Meyer earlier in the day: A Fish Called Wanda. Jason had never seen this, and I never get tired of Kevin Kline in his Oscar-winning role of Otto. "Don't call me stupid!"
* * * * * * * *
Jason doesn't want to learn to dance. "It's not my thing," he says. But I'll try noodjing him again in six weeks, when the next session of lessons starts.
Sunday: we went to brunch at "Old Country Buffet," an all-you-can eat place in Factoria mall. Yum! Then Jason suggested we visit the video arcade (I played pinball and enjoyed it), then asked if I would take him to a thrift store. (It had been evident on Friday that he needed more forks.) Jason knows I like being helpful! He had never been to the large Goodwill store in Seattle, so I suggested we go there, since we were near the highway and I knew how to get there. (Going to a thrift store on the East side would have involved research.) We successfully found forks and knives, and some useful drinking glasses. Not all visitors want to drink out of the quart-size peanut butter jars that Jason mixes his iced tea in.
Used bookstore, video games and pinball, likes cacophony events: a man after my own heart. I think he knew we were compatible when he saw that I had a copy of the director's cut of Aliens on laser disk! This was a much better Valentines weekend than I ever expected.
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