Oooh, indulgent weekend! Yet, a productive one too! Friday I had to take my laptop with me to work (for nefarious reasons I shant go into here) and I actually got lots of work done on revising the story I had critted at Hidden City. This is, oh, the third or fourth revision this poor story has been through. Well, anyway, being on the train was a great way to focus, and I finally got it revised! Tim copyedited it for me Friday night and by Saturday morning it was printed out and in an envelope addressed to Gordon! Whoot, a new story in the mail! That feels good! It had been far too long.

Saturday afternoon I did a few loads of laundry, too, which isn't interesting except to note that our dryer, which had been broken for weeks, is now fixed, but *now* our washer no longer does a proper spin cycle. Sigh. I did laundry on Sunday, too, and today my hands ache from all the hand-wringing I did over the weekend. Probably a good upper body workout, though.

ANYway, back to more exciting stuff. Saturday night Tim and I met up with Dave Moles and Jed Hartman up in Berkeley. We bought street art (I got a dragon made out of mostly bicycle links, and as soon as the batteries recharge on the digital camera I'll try to get a picture up here), then tried out a sushi restaurant that none of us had been to before, but turned out to be very yummy. Dave was sweet enough to drink sake with me, so I wasn't lushing it up by myself, though I'm afraid I had more than my fair share of it. I actually was surprised that I could drink so much sake, and I definitely was a bit on the tipsy side for a bit, which was so fun; I honestly can't remember the last time I could drink enough to get tipsy without getting sick first.

After dinner we went to a cafe and chatted for hours. Oh, it was just such fun. There are certain people, or maybe it's combinations of the right people at the right time, but sometimes, it's just so natural and enjoyable to hang out for hours and hours with good friends, and Saturday night was like that. Just great fun. I feel really lucky to be friends with such wonderful, sweet, intelligent and fun-to-hang-out-with people. Very cool.

So, Sunday my sister called and wanted an impromptu lunch. Since I had nothing more pressing than more half-by-hand laundry, I went, and ended up treating her since it was mother's day and her current boyfriend kinda dropped the ball on remembering to do something for her, poor thing. She got hit up to attend this church by a nice, but rather forceful, man in a suit (who turned out to be the pastor at the Baptist church he was pressing on her). He gave her a rose, though, which was sweet. Then, after he left, some customer got all up in the face of the counter girl over whether she got a super or regular burrito, and it got kinda ugly for a bit. Made me wish the bossy pastor was still around, because no one else in the burrito shop had the kind of booming presence to combat this girl's unreasonable rage. It's a freakin' burrito, for crissakes.

Anyway, it was fun hanging out with Holly and Aleister. The baby definitely remembers me and we spent some time making funny faces at each other over the table. I also spent a bunch of time running after him; Holly lets him wander a lot more than I'm comfortable with, so when I'm with her I tend to follow him and scoop him up before he runs out the door/ into the kitchen/ into the shelf full of delicate glass bottles. He seems to obey me a bit more than he does Holly, but that's probably because he's used to her (he just laughs when she tells him no) and knows she'll love him no matter what; with me, he's not sure I won't get angry if he doesn't stop, so he stops. Sometimes. I managed to get across "look but don't touch" while we were looking for barrettes, but then again, I was holding him, so I could keep them out of his reach/ temptation more than if he was standing.

Heh. I also noticed that I'm in a LOT better shape than the last time Holly and I did lunch (in February, eep!), as it wasn't nearly so exhausting keeping up with the baby. Whoot!

Finally, Sunday night, Tim and I went up to A Certain Magazine headquarters (aka Charles' house) to have an amazing dinner with Charles, Tim's boss. He'd decided that Tim and I needed to learn about wine, specifically Zinfandels, and we had four glorious glasses of increasingly tasty vino before dinner. With, um, some cheese. I was trying to be good, but it was *right in front of me* and I could SMELL it, and I kept cutting off the tiniest sliver of the romano, or the manchego (which is how I used to like to eat cheese anyway, in tiny slivers) and nibbling on it. I did that too many times. I only got a little bit sick later, thanks to some preventative meds, but, let's not dwell on this any longer..

Back to the food. So, we sat out on the deck in the wooded Montclair hills, sipping wine, eating good cheese for the first time in months and months, chatting with our venerable host and having a great time. I kept cooing over how good everything tasted. The main dish was Charles' famous 40 clove garlic chicken, which was heaven, cooked with mushrooms and fresh asparagus and oh-so-tender! Truly a wonderful, decadent night.

So, that was my indulgent weekend. I have learned that I can drink, occasionally, as long as it's really really good wine or, apparently, warm house sake. Heh. I probably can't do this too often, but it was very very nice to get to feel that buzz again, and I couldn't have asked for better company. Lovely weekend.