Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

Did another trivia tonight (after a day of report writing in Cambridge – no appointments with kids, so I got to kinda play hookie). This time, we won third place and a $15 gift certificate to the place for next time. Yay!

On the way in to the Pumpkin Thing, we saw a nutty schizophrenic man who was acting as a sort of greeter. Well, HE thought he was a greeter. Mostly, he was ignored. We walked around, and as we were crossing over to the shops by Park Street Station, we heard what sounded like an explosion. We made a joke about how someone didn’t like the pumpkin. This morning at work, when people asked how my weekend was, I mentioned going to the thing at the Common. Turns out maybe out crazy friend was up to no good. The picture in the Herald sure looks like the guy we saw. Good timing for us, I guess. Luckily, no one was hurt.

In other news, it’s going to take a month to fix the mildew/flooding in my office, so we have to set up in the conference room for now. I hate this shit. I’ve had resource problems for over a year now. How about a regular office with a desk and a computer. How about that? Pretty please? 

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Update: Apparently, it wasn’t our man. Aaron says he thinks this guy looks younger than the nutty guy we saw. They sure look a lot alike, but I think Aaron may be right. Still, I think we heard the bang go down. Weird. 

So I whined a little online and then ended up having the most wonderful weekend. We had all these plans that fell through last week, which kind of sucked, but it all turned around. We went to the Common yesterday for this pumpkin thing. Of course, it rained, as it always does whenever we go outside. We trecked there, saw some pumpkins, then hopped a train to Cambridge and got some grub and Mr and Mrs Bartley’s by the Harvard Book Store. Love that place. After that, we walked to Steve and Linda’s house, where we played Sudoku and drank a few beers, played with the kiddies, talked, and Aaron and Linda made this FABULOUS chicken pot pie. When I’m feeling less lazy, I’ll post a picture. SOOOO good. After that, Aaron made peanut butter cookies. YUM! We actually made contact with Scott and Michelle, two of my very favorite people from grad school. They had been out of town a lot, and the excellent news is that they don’t hate us. Yay! We met them for breakfast in Slumma-ville at the tastiest place EVAR. After that, we had a fine time at Target and got groceries. Oh, and we got to pass over the Charles a few times. We spotted a few boats out for the Head of the Charles. Fun times.

I’ve been writing reports for few the last few hours. LAME! I’m so sick of reports it’s insane, but what are you gonna do? Report-writing is my bag, baby. Now it’s time for Desperate Housewives. Another busy work week looms, but I’m going to trivia, AND my parents are coming, so it’s gonna be fun times. Wahoo! Shit! Forgot to call Carl back. I suck these days. I really do. If I haven’t called, it’s not hatred. It really isn’t. It’s the work! Hard and exhausting, yet rewarding. Better than having no purpose, I guess.

Sheesh, people! Yes, I’m alive. It’s just that I don’t like talking about going out of town on the old blog, since it’s a good way of saying, "Hi! My apartment is empty except for a coupla felines and the occasional petsitter!" What we were trying to do was peep at leaves (fall foliage, that is). Unfortunately, much like the apple picking adventure of last weekend, it was another rain-soaked adventure. No nature drives. No hiking in the woods. Luckily, the B&B in New Hampshire was lovely. We read by the fire, played board games, and did our damndest to relax. We did an OK job, too.

Not much going on with us now that we’re back, except we napped much of the afternoon, and we have to get moving on all these apples before they are no longer usable. Luckily, I picked up this cookbook at our stop at Cracker Barrel on the way up (yes, they actually have a few of those up here!):

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Update: They weren’t kidding about MacIntoshes being mushy when you cook them. I made some crumble last night, and BLECH! The applesauce I made afterwards was lovely though.

With less time to write, I have to cover more topics at once, and I’m not the most organized sort (I save all that for work), so bear with me.

• Aaron and I got a chance to hang out with Peterson and his friend Ben last night. We met downtown and took a walk over to the North End, where we had a nice (albeit loud) dinner at Il Panino. I felt a bit guilty I’d chosen the place because the table next to us was SERIOUSLY loud. Ugh. I hate that. The food was good, and they made nice vegan treats for Peterson. He’s in town doing Queer 101, one of his one-man shows, for a local school. Peterson does the coolest thing. He’s an actor who spent 17 years of his life trying to not be gay, and then he came out. Now, he entertains and educates all over the world. He does pieces he write himself for all types of audiences, and then he often facilitates discussions afterwards. It’s such important work. He’ll be back for a performance of Doin’ Time at the Homo No Mo Halfway House on 10/25 at Northeastern. This is the piece I saw him perform in Memphis. It’s about his experience at Love in Action, the Memphis place (not a church or a mental health facility, but what is it?!) where he went to try to become straight. It’s a fascinating piece. I’ll make sure to plug it when the date approaches. Anyway, the Multicultural Educator in me just loved this show for so many reasons, and the theatre critic in me did, too. It’s soooo something you should see. (Read more about Love in Action if you’re interested.) Anyhoo, dinner was grand. Aaron got to talk about film with Ben, who actually runs a film festival – one I think that maybe my friend Poornima did once. And afterward, we went to Mike’s and got ice cream and sorbet and pastries. YUM!
• The very sad news is that one of my parents cats, Kitty, seems to be dying. Mom is sad because Dad is soooo not a cat person, so she doesn’t really have anyone to commiserate with her. Kitty hasn’t eaten for 4 days. I suggested she give kitty some diluted wet food, and Mom just called and said Kitty took a few sip of some condensed milk, so that’s good news. Maybe it was just a really bad toothache, although Kitty is something like 18, so death is certainly an option. Makes me sad though. She’s always been a really strange cat, but I don’t care. I love her immensely.
• Got a chance to talk to Elizabeth in Bloomington, which was really nice. I never call people. I don’t know why. I’ve just lost my interest in the phone over the last few busy years. It was great to hear her voice and to catch up with her. We may get to see her a bit in December, which would be grand.
• It’s a very grey and windy day. We’re actually thinking of going downtown for a bit of shopping. Aaron says REI is having a sale.