Another Weekend Survived

Finally it is Sunday night and I regret exceedingly to report that I am almost done with the very last Aubrey/Maturin book: Blue at the Mizzen. I hate hate hate coming to the end of books I love and coming to the end of a whole series of books I adore is just that much worse: now what will I do? What will I do with myself now that I'm not hoisting aloft and belaying a line and beholding a snowy petrel on a great ice mountain as I round the horn? Maybe fix the vacuum cleaner. Also, Netflix, on whom I was relying to fill some gaps by sending me The Tudors, sent me discs 3 and 4 instead of 1 and 2. Not cool, Netflix. I am wroth.

Anyway, it was a pleasant weekend. Yesterday I woke up fairly early and cleaned up the house and then took the QOB, finally recovered from her cold, to the Frugal Framer where they are going to stretch six of her canvases. She actually liked the Frugal Framer and even though she began to balk at the price she told me later that she actually thought it was going to be more. Then we went over to True Blue Art Supplies, best place EVER, and bought some art supplies. It was a pleasant outing and after I took her home I fiddled around and created this drawing, which obviously still has a ways to go but I am kind of fond already of these two beings. I'm planning a big monster mural for the side of the garage and the house and to that end I am going to be drawing a bunch of creatures until I find the ones I want to make huge and big. Look out, neighbors! I also made a whole bunch of little glass tile magnets and then gave some away last night, being as how it was Forcibly Be Reminded of Your Pathetic Single Status Day.

I hate Be Made To Feel Inferior and Inadequate for Being Single Day with the heat of a thousand suns but every year it rolls around like a particularly unpleasant piece of clockwork and this year was no exception. H and my daughter A both brought me chocolate covered strawberries, which sort of softened the blow, but still. So then S & J & I, the leprous singles, and also K & J who kindly went slumming with our leprous single selves, went to Tollivers. We wanted to go to the Admiral, but fuck the Admiral, they had a special Valentines Dinner night and they wouldn't even let us sit at the bar. And there was some kind of benefit going on at the Westville, so creepy Tollivers it was. And Tollivers was duly creepy, particularly when the music started and the bar cleared out like lightning. Then we went on back to S house and today poor S has got a horrible cold. I know this because I left my car at S' last night and walked home at 1:30 in the morning and then went to fetch it this afternoon. I hadn't been for a walk at that hour in a long time and everything was dark and silent and beautiful; it was fun.

Today I have done pretty much nothing. A is in town and he came by and we discussed further plans for the house - the wall comes out this week, yowza yowza, and he got the washing machine working, which I am highly embarrassed to report was a simple matter of turning a valve. Yes, I suck at plumbing. He also gave me a full report on young M, who is pretty much his apprentice and seems to be doing well at it. Young M will soon be Grown Up M, which is sort of terrifying but there you have it: time marches on. So does my waistline and that combined with the fact that I got all winded walking home last night has convinced me: I have to quit smoking and start exercising with a vengeance. So I'm going to quit cigarettes very, very slowly, planning to be all done by early May and I'm totally going to start dieting and really exercising and going to the gym and everything. Tomorrow. Or possibly the day after.