The Weekend and Other Things

[dawn_felagund]

Friday night, we were supposed to go out to dinner for meryth's birthday and then go see a movie. Unfortunately, shortly after awaking from our Friday afternoon nap, Bobby started feeling poorly. We went out anyway, but he kept getting worse and worse, so we rushed through our dinner and skipped the movie in favor of coming home. By the time we got home, Bobby was feverish and practically convulsing, he was shivering so hard. He bundled up on the couch for an hour, then his fever broke suddenly and he felt much better. He even ate some oatmeal and waffles that I made for him (his request, not mine!).

So since Meryth kind of got the short end of the birthday stick, we will do a birthday dinner for him sometime later.

This weekend, we had planned to go to my parents' house. My parents are currently doing massive construction on their house. They are converting the current garage into a great room and dining room, knocking down the kitchen walls so that it opens onto the great room, and building a new garage. My dad has kept us all updated with frequent emails and pictures, but he's been chomping at the bit to show off his new room, even if it's nowhere near finished! So we went over to spend the weekend; he bribed us with dinner at Basta Pasta. Bobby and I are still near enough to our days as students that free food will still draw us in.

The new room is ... wow. It's huge! It used to be four rooms: a kitchen, dining room, family room, and garage. Now it's all one big open space ... it's massive! Everything is in shambles. There is dust everywhere, the floors are cold, dirty cement, and there is a water heater sitting somewhat at random in the corner. There are also holes everywhere covered over with plastic. The family room had a fireplace that had to be completely dismantled. When we first came in, poor Alex didn't know what to do. He rounded the corner and got a look like, "What the hell?! What is this place??" My parents' house is probably the second-most familiar place after our apartment, so his confusion was understandable.

Unfortunately, Bobby's strange illness kept returning at odd intervals for the entire weekend, though luckily, it was never as bad as it was on Friday night. For most of the weekend, though, he was curled on the couch in my parents' living room, which is actually the family room transplanted there since the actual family room is a dust-coated block of cement at the moment. Saturday night, we went to supper at the Greek Village and rented two movies from Blockbuster. Bobby wasn't feeling well, so we plugged in one of the movies: Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. Trust me, do not rent this movie. It is beyond stupid. It not only suffers for brutally unfunny crudeness and stupidity but tries to be a rock 'n' roll musical with gawdawful music. A movie about music where, five minutes after the movie, you are left unable to hum a single song ... FAILURE.

We watched a bit of Saturday Night Live with Dad and then went to bed. (And Dad hates SNL ... but we were all too apathetic to change the channel. It's been years since I'd last seen SNL, and I miss the old cast.)

Sunday, Dad managed to make breakfast in the kitchen-in-shambles and pissed and moaned the whole time about how it might be the last time that he'd use his stove and he loves that stove and it has twenty-six years of seasoning on the grill ... I kept saying, "So keep the stupid stove then!" but he insisted that one cannot get a completely new kitchen and keep an old stove. The baby and the bathwater come to mind ...

Sunday, we did nothing. I scratched a bit in my new Paper Bag of Weasels (i.e., not this 'ere Cyber Bag of Weasels) and watched waaaay too much Home and Garden Television because, apparently, that is my parents' new TV channel du jour. Because Bobby and I have pretty much settled on the idea that we will be buying a house at the end of summer, I thought I might get some interesting decorating ideas ... not really. I did, however, develop an extreme distaste for descriptions of rooms/fixtures as "cute" or "fun." It's a fucking faucet. It's not cute. Golden Retriever puppies are cute; Maedhros and Fingon are cute; even Dawn Felagund frolicking through a big field of sunflowers might be cute ... though probably more scary than anything. Also claiming that this couch or that bathtub really "makes a statement" ... no, marching on Washington makes a statement. Putting a cardboard George W. Bush in your front yard with a knife through the head definitely makes a statement. But rhinestones on pillows? Not so much.

About halfway through the Day of HGTV, we did pause long enough to watch the second movie, The Lake House. This was definitely better than Tenacious D but still not fantastic. Never mind that the ending felt like the writers said, "Oh, shit. We've painted ourselves into a corner and have no choice but to have a sad ending ... so let's just randomly go back into time and erase things and ... yeah, we're not expecting an intelligent audience, so that will work."

Sunday night, we had a big ol' family supper at Basta Pasta, which was excellent, as usual.

Over the weekend in general, Bobby was sick and apathetic, and Alex was hyper--and annoying--as hell. Because my parents' house is torn to pieces with a huge, messy room to frolic in, then Alex literally refused to settle down. Alex will usually play for a half-hour to an hour, then sleep for two or three. Except when we made him go to sleep at night, he did not stop all weekend. And it wasn't oh-I'm-just-having-fun-la-la-la ... no, he was getting into things, like tearing off mouthfuls of yellow insulation or eating plaster crumbs off of the floor, so I had to keep one eye on him all weekend. I think that the novelty of it was just too much for him; he simply did not know how to settle down. On Sunday night, Bobby buckled him into the car, made him lay down, and he did not budge again until we got home. He fell asleep on the couch and refused to come to bed, so Bobby had to carry him into the bedroom, laid him on his bed, and again, he did not budge. Though, at some point during the night, he must have rolled into some baby gates that we had stacked in the corner because he knocked them over, woke everyone up, and scared himself shitless. Teehee.

Bobby was home sick today. Come to find out, his troubles are exacerbated by the fact that, last Tuesday, he fell backwards while playing hockey and hit his head on the ice. I knew that it happened but he did not tell me how badly he hurt himself. He has a whiplash in his neck and, we fear, perhaps a small concussion as well. So he has been in terrible pain. Just like a man, he downplayed it to me so that I would not worry or insist that he do such silly things like take it easy or take Ibuprofen for his pain. We had lunch together today at Panera Bread, and he got a stern talking-to. Though I should not complain; I am not much better about cowboying up through pain. (Though my hip has not hurt in weeks, thanks to the new bed, even when I lay on the floor, which used to cripple my right leg for about an hour afterwards.)

I'm still apathetic; still trying to get finished what I can but falling further behind every day. I'm sacrificing my writing to do other things because, truthfully, I don't feel much like writing right now. Spring can't come fast enough.

Before I STFU and stop jabbering, all Feanorian fans out there, check this out! noliel has made a music video about Nerdanel and Feanor; she did all of the drawings herself. It is beautiful and an amazing effort! I downloaded it on Bobby's computer just so that I could see and hear it (since Pengolodh Lord of Gondolin has no sound card.) It was well worth the effort!

Comments

[tarion-anarore.livejournal.com]

I generally don't lick my dogs. Or at least I try not to. Hair in mouth, bleh. But, having been licked on the mouth by the dogs, I can say that it isn't exactly fun.