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Mushroom Factor
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Tell me what brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals. |
Saturday, August 7, 1999
One year ago: Surprises
Two years ago: Birth of the New
Jack drove down from Bellingham today, with his younger daughter H----. She's been staying with him for about five weeks; I know he's glad about that. He was talking on his cell phone as they came in; H--- told me he was on the phone with his older daughter A----! I was surprised; I didn't know he'd heard from her since her latest time running away, but apparently she'd been picked up in Denver (again!) because they enforce the laws against underage smoking there. The police saw her smoking outside a mall, talked to her, and eventually found out who she was and that she'd been arrested before in that city. Of all places to return to!
So she'll be flying back to Washington State next week, to face the contempt of court charges from her earlier episodes. After that, who knows?
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We waited around for my new mattress to be delivered. I felt like a bad hostess, since I hadn't gotten to the store to get beverages and food more to the taste of Jack and H----. There are stores nearby, though, so we sent H--- on various errands. Finally the truck arrived with the mattress and box spring. I'd already moved my former bed out of the bedroom and into the dining room.
No longer tied to the apartment, Jack and I took his van down to Bed, Bath and Beyond to pick up my new "Shaker" style bedframe. We brought it back and started the process of re-setting my bedroom.
I wanted to just put the bedframe together. It was the latter half of the afternoon by then, and we were going to my sister's for a pre-Vanguard dinner. But Jack wanted to take the opportunity to do it right, to do it thoroughly. I'd been without a rug in my bedroom for the time I'd lived there. There was a rug pad, that had deteriorated badly -- they aren't meant to take any traffic. I would have gotten rid of it long ago, but there was furniture on top that made the job difficult. We decided to go ahead and lift the furniture and pull the pad out from underneath, only cutting where there were fully loaded bookshelves holding it down.
We did it! In the process, we moved a bunch of stuff out of the room. Because of the mushroom factor ("Since we are doing this, we might as well do that at the same time.") Jack decided that now was a good time to redo the wires and cords on my PC to make it more sensible. I swept the floor and wiped things down, to get rid of the rug pad dust and crud. The floor looked great! Beautiful oak boards.
When we got around to unpacking the boxes that contained the bedrame, we realized it would be a much longer job than we had time for. There was no way to get it assembled before dinner. So we propped the headboard and footboard against the wall, put the box spring and mattress on the floor, and I made the bed with my new elegant high-quality sheets.
I was slightly disappointed, but the assembly job looks doable; just not in the time we had available today.
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We were late for dinner, but my sister M---- very kindly had waited for us. Her kids are used to eating early, so I wouldn't have been offended if she had gone ahead and fed them. We all sat down for home-made pizza and lemonade. H---- had the option of spending the night there or being picked up by us on our return from Vanguard. It took her a long time to decide, or at least to make her preferences known, but she finally allowed as how it would be ok for her to spend the night.
Vanguard (a monthly party of science fiction fans) was held in West Seattle, at Leslie Howle's place. I had fun talking to my friend Tom Lawrence. I had no idea that so many people had joined my friend Andy Hooper at the Toy Collecting Channel website. Stu Schiffman, Victor Gonzalez, and Craig Steed are also working there, writing or hyperlinking. They insisted that they didn't want to talk about their work, then continued discussing it for the rest of the evening. Vocation and avocation are one, indeed!
When we got back to Capitol Hill, Jack wanted to see if Hopscotch, a bar up the street that specializes in (what else?) scotch and beer, was still open. It was, so he got to taste some fine old scotch, and I got some bread pudding. I took some micro-sips from the Laphroig 15 years, and I did like it better than the other scotch he tried. Jack enjoyed the whole thing, including the educational speeches from the bartender. (The bartender went out of his way to get me that dessert, also.) A pleasant end to a long but productive day.
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