April 19-20: Visiting friends, videos, unpacking, and bagels

[rowyn]

 Saturday, April 19

I woke up around 8AM, which was too early given that I'd stayed up until 1:30AM. I got up anyway and had the rest of the cereal for breakfast. My mother used to eat Raisin Bran Crunch but hadn't been having it lately and I'd been eating it for breakfast since I got here. There's no reason I couldn't have the same things here that I had at my old home; I just haven't been. 

I can actually still get groceries from Walmart, it turns out; the nearest Walmart has the same "In Home" service I previously used. But my parents are used to ordering from a local grocery and I doubt I can persuade them to use a different one. Even though Walmart offers better service for less money. My mother has had a grudge against Walmart since they botched delivery on a TV she'd purchased. 

After breakfast, I played some Time Princess. I remembered that I  unpacked my requisite box, and took a shower. By the time I finished with the shower, I was tired. I was seeing Kage, Sophrani, and Envoy at 2PM, and had about two hours, so I lay down for a nap. I mostly failed at nap but managed forty-five minutes or so. I got up again at 1PM and got ready to go. Fussing with various little things before I left took longer than I'd expected, and I left a bit late. And also forgot to bring up directions, so I had to stop to do that. I still haven't memorized the route to my friends' house, but I remember their address and my own new one now. 

This morning, Kage had been helping his father get his house ready for sale, but he'd already gotten back by the time I arrived, which was a pleasant surprise. 

Sophrani: "You know, since you live in the area, I just wanted you to know that you're welcome to see us more often now."

Me, joking:  "So, like, more than once a year?" 

Sophrani: "Yes! A lot more often. If you want to get together for lunch or stop by for an afternoon or whatever, that'd be great."

So Sophrani and I made plans for Thursday afternoon to do crafting together: she'll work on quilling and I'll draw. 

Envoy arrived shortly after I did. I generally come by in the early afternoon, so that we have time for lunch beforehand and also Envoy has time to wake up. He sleeps very late on the weekends. 

For an hour or two, we chatted in the living room. Kage had recently purchased a laser engraver, and talking about that reminded me: "Wait, you have a working regular printer, don't you?" Terrycloth's executor had sent me a form to sign in early April. I don't own a printer and usually went to the library on the very rare occasions when I needed something printed. But I hadn't gotten around to it before the move. I sent Kage both attachments even though I only needed one page printed, because I wasn't sure which attachment it was. Before I sorted it out, Kage had printed both of them. Oops. But I could finish this task finally!

After chatting for a while, we went to the theater room to watch some "Witchy-poo", their nickname for the anime I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level, which is rather unwieldy to say every time. We watched three episode from Season 2. I haven't seen all of season 1, but it's a cozy, episodic fantasy with basically no actual conflict, so missing some episodes isn't an issue.

We went to dinner after that, at a local italian place. Sophrani ordered a crostini appetizer and shared it -- very tasty! They have a crab & ricotta manicotti that I probably got last time and got again this time -- it's tasty, but I should try something else the next time we go. I saved room for dessert because they had cookies and cream cannoli and and amazingly everyone else decided to get dessert with me. 

After dinner, we went back to Kage & Sophrani's house to watch "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves", which Envoy and Kage were both enthusiastic about. Sophrani and I hadn't seen it. I expect living near the three of them will catch me up some on my deficit of sff-viewing. It's nice that Kage and Envoy are so content to re-watch the things they've enjoyed.

I remembered to get my leftovers out of their fridge and headed home after the movie. I felt peckish when I got home, so I ate the rest of my cannoli (the restaurant has served me two and I took one home). I played some Time Princess and then crashed.

Sunday, April 20

I had no plans for today except to get bagels for breakfast, since I'd eaten the last of the raisin bran. I woke around 8AM again, and got myself out of bed at 8:30AM. There's a Panera maybe a mile and half from the house, and a Brueger's a little further. I went to the Panera because I like their Asiago cheese bagels. They don't have onion bagels, but my dad likes everything bagels fine. My mother prefers he have onion bagels because he gets poppy seeds all over the place when he eats everything bagels, but whatever. They have a cleaning service. It's fine. 

I told Dad the plan.

Dad: "Great! Are you getting cream cheese and lox, too?"

Me: "Cream cheese, yes, but tragically bagel places nowadays seldom sell lox. We'll have to get some from the store."

Dad: *mock-pouts*

I checked the fridge for the status of cream cheese: they had a brick of plain, so I figured that was plenty for Dad and I could get honey-walnut for myself and my mother. They also had an unopened package of smoked salmon, which I excitedly showed to my father. "I don't need to get lox*! We have some."

* Smoked salmon and lox are not the same thing, but my father is a Jewish man from Brooklyn and has been calling smoked salmon "lox" his whole life. Close enough.

I got a bagel pack from Panera. Back home, I fixed bagels for my parents and myself, and went upstairs to eat mine. I had smoked salmon with honey-walnut cream cheese on mine, which did not seem like a natural pairing but I like sweet with almost anything, so I figured it'd be fine.

It was so good. I wanted another bagel right away. I restrained myself and waited 75 minutes until it was 11AM, so I could call the second bagel "lunch." 

Lyric remains fascinated by the garage. She went into it before I left, came back inside for lunch, and then was lurking by the door to the garage when my mother wanted to get McDonald's. I had to come down to grab her while my mother left. Lyric seems to have accepted the garage as an acceptable substitute to going outside, though. Long-term, I think enclosing the back porch will be preferable. My parents don't go out through the back door, so Lyric wanting to use it won't be an inconvenience the way the garage can be.

After lunch, I unpacked two boxes while listening to podcasts, then took a shower. Post-shower, I felt pretty worn-out, so I put on some lo-fi to nap. Listening to lo-fi while I sleep/try to sleep has been working very well. It makes my room feel peaceful and cozy, and even at low volumes, masks enough of the noise from downstairs that it doesn't keep me awake. I managed to nap for 90 minutes or so; that was nice.

I was tempted to have a third bagel-with-lox for dinner, but ate my leftovers from yesterday instead. 

My brother called to ask us about groceries: he had the grocery list for my father from my father's home health aide, but hadn't ordered on Thursday like usual. He told us to email if we needed anything else, and I said I'd just add to the cart the stuff I wanted. Mom didn't want it delivered until tomorrow because the store has a surcharge for Sunday deliveries, and we didn't need anything urgently. 

I added stuff to the cart throughout the day, as I remembered it. 

I played some more of the Exile Princes, and discovered there's some kind of soft-cap on number of units, where their morale is bad if there are too many of them, even if you're able to pay them all. But I'd discovered where you could dismiss units, so I got rid of some. And then accidentally didn't have any people who were good at defense left. Oops.

Somewhere in here, I unpacked a third box. I also moved two boxes into the unfinished section of the attic where the upstairs furnace is. There's not much room in there, but I can stack some stuff in the space without obstructing access to the furnace. One box is just the gigantic tabletop Ogre game, and the other has my Jyhad collection and a bunch of Magic: the Gathering cards.

Around 7PM, I closed the game down and finished re-reading Kingdom of Beasts in Time Princess. Around 8:30PM, Coffee canceled stream. Cutsycat encouraged everyone to fight the Flame Mountain God in the current 4thewords event, because the community challenge to defeat it has been running for 3 days and the community is still less than halfway through it. 

I have a timed quest to defeat a hundred tiny monsters, so I did a few for that first, then switched to fighting Flame Mountain God for the rest of the night. 

All my writing has been journaling, though. I keep thinking "I'll get back to writing fiction now" but not actually getting back to writing fiction. 

For now, though, it's after midnight and I'm calling it a night. I'll go downstairs to refill my drink and let Lyric back inside, then go to bed.

Comments

[tuftears]

Yay for what sounds like a relaxing few days. ^.^

[alltoseek]

I always thought dad was from Brooklyn but I could be wrong. There’s where he grew up and then there’s where grandpa was living and those may have been different places.

[rowyn]

I was thinking you were right about Brooklyn and double-checked with Dad. Yup! Brooklyn.