photo saturday: pointillism

This week was a whole lot less complicated. Which is good.

Also, I actually cooked this week... like during the week. The upside of that is that I didn't get tired of anything, the downside being that a) I had to cook and b) I find of forgot how bad I am at certain dishes. But overall it was all good.

DnD had it's moments this week... and I'm not sure they were all great. My Monday group finished the season of first tier modules I've been running for the last six weeks, and the last adventure was kind of open ended, but I'd also gotten them worked up enough during the previous five adventures that they took great delight in taking down the bad guys.

Now I just need to come up with some new modules for them to run before they level up to the higher tier stuff.

Wednesday a woman came back to DnD who hadn't been there for several weeks, which was great, unfortunately I didn't end up playing with her, which was unfortunate. But I did play my first tier 3 game which was kind of exciting, although the DM wasn't great, which was, again, unfortunate.

Thursday we were back to the game shop, instead of at someone's house... so that was... blah. And there weren't enough of us to fill out a table, so we had to take on randos, which is another thing I've enjoyed about not playing at the shop on Thursdays. One of them was fine, one less so (making matters worse, he was also on my table on Wednesday... and I just don't like him).

Friday was my chiro appointment, so I rugged myself up and headed into town.

And that was more or less my week really.

Today was, average.

I'm still going with the "not soup" plan for meals this week, although I kind of think that I didn't get enough stuff, so that might be interesting.

After shopping and whatnot, we headed into the city to go to the Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay exhibition at the Art Gallery. Basically French paintings from 1827 to 1927.

First off, we somehow managed to choose a day when a coach full of people showed up at the same time as us, so the whole thing was a little crowded. And some people have no idea how to move around a crowded gallery. So that aspect was a little frustrating.

I'm also going to say that there were maybe half a dozen pictures that I really liked, and a lot of those were the divisionist/neo-impressionist pieces. Not that the others were bad, I just didn't especially care for them.

It was a slightly trying excursion, but an interesting one.

Current Mood:

movies: ocean's eight

I want to try and treat Ocean's Eight as much like it's own unique thing as possible, which is a little hard when it's the lastest in the George Clooney/Brad Pitt "Ocean's" series.

And it's definitely a sequel to those movies, not a reboot or a re-imagining.

It also took all the great parts of the Ocean's movies and turned them into a hell of a movie.

The script is tight and fun, and possibly a little less concerned in being too smart for it's own good like some of the previous movies. And while it does have some of those tense moments when you wonder if the whole thing is going to fall apart, you know you're watching an Ocean's movie, so it's all going to work out in the end.

Everything in the movie looks amazing, from the costumes, sets, even their hair, which I will freely admit I don't always notice... and the makeup, even if Debbie did have a little too much eye shadow in the prison scene.

And the cast... the cast is amazing.

I love Sandra Bullock at the best of times, but here, where you just instantly believe that she's George Clooney's sister, and she's so calm and collected and a little bit dangerous, she's outstanding... Cate Blanchett who is the Brad Pitt of this movie, and may actually be playing a lesbian, it's never obvious, but she's definitely queercoded and there are a couple of little comments, which I loved. Because if they want to do a lesbian gangster movie with Bullock and Blanchett, I'm 150% down for it.

This may be the calmest I've seen Helena Bonham Carter in a while, even with an Irish accent, and she's got great comic timing. Rihanna is really good, although she doesn't have to do a lot of dialogue-centric heavy lifting, which may be the reason, Mindy Kaling feels like she's a little under used at times, but that's better than the alternative. Awkwafina, who I will freely admit that I had never heard of before, is really good... weird as hell, but good and a definite scene stealer. And Sarah Paulson, how can anyone NOT love Sarah Paulson? You can't... she's just always perfect, especially in this kind of dual suburban mother but also con-woman role.

And last, but by no means least, Anne Hathaway. I know for a while there it was "super-cool" to hate on Anne Hathaway, but I never understood that, I've always liked her. And she's really great in this as the target of the scheme.

Adding to the cast are Richard Armitage in a version of the Julia Roberts role, who, I'll be honest, is a little forgettable overall. The only strange casting choice was the third act introduction of James Corden as an investigator. I mean it's not BAD, but it is strange and it did throw me out of the movie, especially as I was expecting a late stage switcharoo because of it that (spoilers?) never happened.

This was just a fun, funny, heist movie, and I really like it.

yani's rating: 4 diamonds out of 5

photo saturday: twosies

This week has been... complicated.

Sunday was... complicated. And yeah, there are going to be a lot of ellipses today.

My "is it a friend thing, is it a date, is it sex" thing from last week was great, but also confusing, but also great. I thought that we'd taken the gloves off before, but the gloves really came off this time. We started off with a fairly innocuous conversation about Assassin's Creed amongst other things, until I turned the conversation to whatever the hell was going on between the two of us.

Thing were said (and I told him the confusion I was having about the friend/date/sex thing, and he had had a similar thought), things were shared, a lot of very hard core flirting and a somewhat extreme game of footsie was going on. But we'd both agreed at the start of the afternoon that nothing sexual was going to happen.

And then it was time for him to go... so I gave him a hug like I would do anyone, and a peck on the cheek because that's also a thing I do... and then I slid my arms around his waist inside his coat just because I wanted to touch him, him and not the coat. And our heads were very, very close together, and he moved towards me and I moved towards him and we moved towards each other and while I suspect it was most likely me who closed the final gap, neither of us is certain, but there was a kiss.

A short, sweet, shy, tender, gentle, verging on chaste kiss. A kiss that instantly went on my list of the top 10 best kisses I've ever had. A kiss I've replayed in my mind far too many times between then and now. A kiss I wouldn't swap for anything.

But he pulled away first and said something like "that will have to be enough for now", and I agreed, and then he was out the door and gone.

Fortunately because we'd literally talked about anything and everything, I wanted him to know that that wasn't part of some grand plan, it was a moment of pure instinct, so he probably hadn't even made it to the bus stop before I sent him a message. And we talked it all through and we were good.

And then as a normal life interlude, I made Rogan Josh flavoured soup... which was lovely, but just something that I could not force myself to be especially excited about. I think I'm just over soup right now, so I'm taking a break from it this week.

Then Monday happened.

Monday was fine... there were some things rolling around in my head, but nothing majorly major.

Oh, except I went looking for attention and found what I thought was good attention, but turned out to be bad, bad, bad attention. And by attention, I mean sex.

Then I went off to play DnD. And by play, I mean run. It was a good game... I lost two of the newbies I'd picked up a couple of weeks back and instead picked up two other regulars, both of whom I like. So that was great, and for the second week in the row, I was able, within the framework of the adventure, to have the players attack one another (bless you charm effects).

After the game, I stuck around and got to talking with one of the guys that I'm friendly with... he's a good guy and I have a lot of time for him (and we've had a number of post-DnD chats this year). And I don't even remember what we were talking about, but before I knew it, the whole confusing mess from Sunday and before had spilled out of my mouth. Because sometimes you just need to get it out of your brain. Plus he's a good listener, and has a psych degree (I really, really need to ask him what the fuck it is he actually does... I thought I knew, but honestly I have no fucking clue), so he put a bunch of things in context for me.

There was one thing he said that I didn't think was especially important at the time, but pretty much went off like an unexploded grenade in my head later on. On the subject of men and sex, he said "do you ever say no"... a valid question (and seriously, he's one of the number of people that I am well and truly beyond the casual polite aspects of conversation, because that shit is boring) in the circumstances, and while the answer is definitely "yes", my brain reacted to it differently later.

Because it's not about "saying" no, I've said no, and meant it... it's about who is reaching out to who, and what the fuck I want, and other people playing games most of the time and the fact that if my walls are down most of the time because I have my hand extended, but their walls are clearly up, even though they're saying that they're reaching out.

Which is a confusing mess of a sentence, because I can't explain it probably, but I know it.

Tuesday is when my brain imploded on itself.

It was the situation with The Boy (I ran through a number of other possible names, but, you know what, that one came first and is actually the most appropriate) to start with... and the fact that I haven't worked in over a year... and I can't get out of my own way to start looking for something... and with all things I hate the "looking" process, I just want to jump straight from the nothing to the something, and just bypass the bit in the middle... because why the fuck not. And there are also changes on the horizon for DnD Adventurer's League, which they're not sharing effectively, and no matter what version of a new system they put in place, it's still going to be stupid and I'm still going to hate it. Because change, on the whole, sucks... and why are you fixing something that clearly is not in any way broken and has worked the same way since 1974.

And I didn't go anywhere and I didn't see anyone on Tuesday... so my brain had complete free reign to implode.

I was sad and angry and confused and... well to be honest, it was mostly mad at the start of the day, confused in the middle and sad at the end.

Mostly because I worked out that The Boy is at least 95% only interested in me because I'm available and interested (and that's okay, he doesn't know what the fuck he wants when it comes to men), and that sleeping with him at any point will probably be a bad idea, but certainly being his first would be a disaster. And that what I want more than anything is to be wanted.

I want to be wanted. It seems so self evident doesn't it. Who doesn't want that? And I probably already knew it and have dealt with other situations in a "you don't want me, let's move on" context, but not when it's somebody I already knew, somebody I already liked, somebody as beautiful as The Boy. And somebody who I want to want me. But he doesn't. Or at least he doesn't want me enough.

And because the universe has a sick sense of humour, it sent me people on Tuesday who definitely seemed to want me, but either wouldn't make the final step, or who I just don't really want back all that much. But because one of them likes to be submissive, I was able to be kind of an asshole and he thoroughly enjoyed it. It also made me message someone who keeps popping up on my radar, is super keen for about 15 minutes and then disappears for another 12 months... but we reconnected again recently for the allotted 15 minutes, and I really just wanted to know he wasn't going to reply this time too... but he did... it's still weird as fuck, but it's not nothing.

Have I mentioned my life is, generally speaking, weird as fuck right now?

The Boy actually messaged me Tuesday night, and for the first time I felt like I couldn't share what was going on in my head. So much so that even though we had a brief conversation where he assured me that he wasn't going anywhere, and I did likewise, I couldn't bring myself to tell him that I was going a little insane. And it took about fifteen minutes of picking my phone up, opening my messages and staring at the keyboard before I finally told him that my brain had fallen out of my head.

But I also knew I needed to have a real conversation with him and it wasn't a conversation I wanted to have over text messages.

So I was just a sad little panda all evening.

Wednesday was better. Partially because I had to go out of the house and play DnD, partly because I got to have a big tantrum about the AL changes to people who a) knew what I was talking about and b) agreed with me for the most part. But also because I ended up just confiding a bunch of stuff about the whole Boy situation to the girl who works in the place we play... and again, we ended up way too deep in TMI territory because it would seem that I honestly don't have a filter between brain and mouth.

But because I'd already had the one conversation on Monday, all the puzzle pieces had been unearthed and I was able to lay them all out in their correct order and make some new connections and really work out the "want to be wanted" stuff. As well as the idea that sleeping with him now, and possibly ever, would be something of a disaster.

I will put a single caveat on that... if he goes away, has his first, maybe second, maybe third, fourth and fifth, maybe even six and seventh experiences with guys and comes back to me and says "I absolutely want you because of these reasons and let me show you how much"... then maybe. But it's still probably a really bad idea. Because at a certain point he's going to go off and get involved with a woman, because that's definitely a thing that's going to happen. Because he's a Kinsey scale 1 at best... "predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual". Whereas I'm a 6.

Weirdly (or maybe not... if everything in your life is weird, does that mean your life is actually not weird at all?), after talking with Comic Shop Girl, I felt better... to be honest, having a little dummy spit and pretending to be a 6'2" tall bipedal cheetah asskicking monk for four hours AND talking to Comic Shop Girl afterwards all helped, but mostly getting thoughts out of my head in a specific order and arranging them appropriately made me feel better.

Thursday rolled around.

I caught up with The Boy (at a place that isn't my house, because knowing your limits and your triggers is important)... and we had another in a long line of possibly "a little too honest for it's own good" conversations. All the things I've burbled in this post, I burbled at him, and we agreed that we're going to attempt to roll things back to before his drunken confession, when things were fun and flirty and not weird. How well we do is anybody's guess. I think we'll be okay. We're both too honest for our own good. Although I'm probably more open than him just because of experience.

And then the Thursday folks and I had a pretty awesome game of DnD... much roleplay was had, my character ended up with both a really awesome talking sword and the beginnings of a halfling/dwarf interspecies relationship with one of the NPCs. Because that's not going to get weird (in the best possibly way) at a certain point... there has already been a very long, "almost phone sex, but not quite and completely in character so it was both less and more weird", text message conversation I had with the DM about what happened when we made camp for the night.

It's also weird that it's totally not weird to hold your DM's hand at a certain point when you're both roleplaying in character and he's having the NPC be very touchy-feely. God, that's so weird out of context... but in context it makes perfect fucking sense.

Anyway... Friday wasn't any less weird to be honest.

It started with a Friday haircut... which is weird because it's usually a Thursday.

Tink got the "I've sorted out my shit, but just let me unpack all of this just in case" version of the story, and I realised I felt okay about everything. Things don't feel particularly different between me and The Boy, time will tell however, but I feel like it was just a speedbump that rattled us a little but doesn't mean much in the overall journey.

Sorry, slight diversion there.

It wasn't a long visit, just the haircut and then the toner treatment (which always comes out a little purple for a day or two, but it lasts longer that way so I really don't care).

And then I came back and got on with my day. Also, because the universe is twisted, it sent me back the submissive guy, who ended up coming over. And everybody got what they needed.

Have I overshared enough yet? I think maybe yeah.

Today was remarkably free of oversharing moments.

We did the supermarket thing this morning as always... I bought actual things for actual meals during the week instead of just making one giant meal on Sunday night that is supposed to last the week. So no soup this week, I'm just losing interest in it, so I need to take some time off.

Afterwards we decided that since it's so damn cold currently (relatively speaking, no... but compared with even this time last year, it's freezing), indoors would be the better option, and the movies sounded like a plan.

So we went down to Marion, did the full Marion wander as always and then went to the movies. This was followed up by very late lunch at Nando's and then we headed back here before Ma headed home.

Again, not a thrilling day, but not bad as these things go.

Current Mood:

movies: incredibles 2

I'll admit that The Incredibles isn't really in my top 5 list of Pixar movies, but they have absolutely outdone themselves with Incredibles 2.

Also, lets put there out there right now at the beginning of this review... baby Jack-Jack legitimately steals every single scene that he's in, and I'm 100% here for all of it.

Going back a little... the first movie is, without a shadow of a doubt, Bob/Mr Incredible's movie. The story is all about him, plot gets moved by him, the others are only mobilised to save him. There's a B story with the rest of them, sure, but it's basically the Mr Incredible Show.

This time around it's Helen/Elastigirl/Mrs Incredible's movie.

With Bob being a stay-at-home dad as the B story (and it's probably a more well thought-out B story than Helen's was in the original).

The story is solid action adventure, and it's nice to see the female superhero taking charge, especially given that Elastigirl is capable of being much more subtle.

It also feels perhaps less "on message" than other Pixar movies. I mean, yes, there's definitely some "hey, taking care of children is hard work", equality stuff going on, but it's just a function of the story.

This isn't a movie that's going to make anybody cry (I don't think).

It's also SUPER obvious who the villain is. I mean, the moment the character appeared on screen I though "oh, so you're the villain then". I don't know whether they thought they were being clever and disguising it... and there were a couple of instances where I thought I was wrong, but no, turned out the the great reveal wasn't so much a reveal as a "well, dur".

But that didn't bother me to be honest.

Like the first one, the movie has that cool retro-future 50's vibe to everything... which somehow seems even more apparent this time around, perhaps because they're in much better looking locations overall.

And even though this movie starts right as the previous one finishes, the character models have definitely been given a spruce up... the most obvious of which is Dash, who has much more obvious freckles and cooler hair than he did in the first movie. He also looks a tiny bit older, which is weird, since it's all one time frame.

Oh... and the Edna Mode scenes... pure genius.

Also, the short that precedes the movie, Bao, is lovely but very weird... at least until it all comes together and makes sense at the end.

yani's rating: 4 domino masks out of 5

photo saturday: mens

The weather, as they say, is shithouse.

Don't get me wrong, I love winter and rain and whathaveyou... but this seems to be less rain as it is brief instances of the end of the world... and then it goes back to absolutely nothing.

And that would be fine, if a) my apartment wasn't all kinds of freezing and b) those heavy rain falls didn't happen at moments when I either need to leave the house or am already out of the house.

But I digress.

Let's see, I've reached that point already where I get bored with soup before the end of the week. I mean the last one wasn't bad... it just wasn't outstanding.

DnD wasn't bad this week... my DMing streak continues on Monday nights, and I had an "old friend" (ie someone I met when I started playing who then disappeared for a while) show up and play on my table, which I enjoyed.

Wednesday wasn't bad... I played a character I haven't played in a while, spent a bunch of in-game money, got knocked unconscious (because this character ALWAYS gets knocked unconscious), but we emerged mostly victorious.

Thursday was... a premium Thursday experience I have to say... just the core Thursday group, with our original DM for these characters, fucking up an adventure in all kinds of new and interesting ways. It's weird that this is the character that a) was supposed to have a completely different personality, which only occasionally asserts itself and b) because I know her as part of that group, I know her probably the best out of all of my characters.

And because all my characters are more fleshed out versions of certain parts of my personality, she's 50% caring about those people she considers to be "hers" and 25% let me explain why you're wrong and 25% you're an asshole, go fuck yourself. Makes for an interesting time.

Completely unrelatedly, the newest Assassin's Creed game got announced this week, and unsurprising to anyone who's been paying attention, it's set in Ancient Greece. I was thinking about doing a whole blog post about it, but also realised I don't actually care that much. I mean some of the stuff I like... the dialogue options, the potential for same sex romance with characters, the fact that you get to play as your choice of a male or female character... all excellent choices.

What I don't like is the fact that THEY'RE NOT FUCKING ASSASSINS. We clearly saw in the previous game that the Assassin Order (aka The Hidden Ones) began with the assassination of Caeser in 44 BCE, whereas the new game takes place in 431 BCE... so 387 BEFORE the Assassins were even a thing.

Way to paint yourself into a story corner in about 37 seconds Ubisoft.

I'll also say that while it probably makes some degree of sense making an Athenian/Spartan divide to the campaign, I've always had much more interest in Athens than Sparta... so while that's not a deal breaker, it is making me that little bit less interested.

This also means that we know that the next game will be something along the lines of Assassins Creed Empire or something similar and be set in Ancient Rome, possibly even earlier still making even less sense.

Yeah, because clearly I don't care that much.

Next item that is taking up all the space in my head...

This is going to be a little vague, mostly because parts of this aren't my story to tell, but I need to get some of the other parts out of my head, or at least recorded somewhere so that I can look back and see how incredibly dumb I either was or wasn't.

I have a friend who I've always found a little bit flirty, he seems to do it with everyone, but he identifies as straight. Then I found out he's perhaps not as straight as previously indicated. And we started getting a lot closer, or at least talking a lot more. And he was still incredibly flirty and we sailed past a lot of normal conversation lines with pure abandon, with neither of us being particularly bothered by that (late night text based conversations will do that for you)... and then this week, after he'd been drinking we had a REALLY honest conversation.

So he has his own other issues going on, but he's also thought about the two of us together. And I'll admit, while I had entertained the same idea on more than one occasion, I had the barest of inklings that he was feeling that way... just something about our conversations and, I'll be honest, the way he looks at me sometimes.

The problems are many and varied... primarily, he's barely curious and has no experience... this makes me both a perfect person to be his first and also the worst. Because I'm not going to push him beyond his boundaries on the first go, but if it all goes south, I lose a friend and potentially fuck up things for a wider friendship group.

I'm also not sure if he's interested because he's interested or because he likes me (as a friend), I'm available and we flirt like crazy. And I asked him that, because we're way past not having those conversations at this point) and he doesn't know the answer. What I don't know is how long he's been having this thoughts... is it just since we started heavy duty talking? Or since we met? I have no idea.

So I'm completely unsure if he's actually going to accept my invitation to come over and hang out and chat tomorrow... and if he does, I'm not sure whether it's just a hang out with a friend who needs an ear, or if this is some kind of date, or if this is about sex.

Or possibly all three.

The sex thing I'm going to have to put back in his court... he needs to know why he wants to have sex with me before we do anything, because otherwise it's just a recipe for disaster. The problem being that he's very pretty.

The other worry is that I'm massively getting ahead of myself with all of this overthinking.

So, yeah... my brain is a little full.

Moving on to today...

I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing as far as soup is concerned this week... I'm considering making some sort of adapted version of Beef Rogan Josh... but thinning it out somewhat into soup. I have no idea. We'll see how it comes together tomorrow... or possibly Monday morning if my Sunday gets weird.

Otherwise everything was pretty average for the supermarket portion of the day... although much like the rest of the day, we mostly managed to fit it in between rain squalls.

It was definitely a day to be inside however, so we decided on a movie... and to head out to the new Palace Nova cinema on Prospect Road... because it's new, and we haven't been before.

It's not bad. I mean they definitely go with the "lets put lots of smaller cinemas in a place" over "a couple of big grand cinemas", but honestly, that's often a better idea. The inside of the building is sadly nowhere near as grand as the outside... and there's a whole "you can only go up via escalators" thing that's frankly a little weird.

But it was a nice trip to the movies.

We tossed around the idea of a brief wander along Prospect Road, but then threw the idea out since the weather was still questionable. And instead we went to Perrymans Bakery in North Adelaide and brought it back to my place.

So not a terribly exciting day, but at least we stayed out of the weather.

Current Mood:

photo saturday: art fish

Okay, so this week was... a week.

Who am I even kidding, my weeks are, at this point, predominantly interchangeable. But some interesting, in the loosest possibly definition of the word, things came up.

Firstly, it appears that I am currently running the third season of DnD modules from start to finish... or at least all the Tier 1 stuff. I had no intention of it happening, it just kind of happened, like all things, because of a handsome man. And I may have picked up four other players, and five is generally a good number if we can keep it to five for the most part. I mean, I'll keep running stuff until Handsome Canadian Man either stops coming or changes characters. And we'll see what happens this week, because I killed his character last week. That's two different characters in two weeks, and both times because of animals. So I need to have a backup plan for what happens in that scenario next time (which I think I have a rough idea about already).

Then Wednesday I got to play, which was good, because it'd been almost two weeks at that point. However, we should actually have all died, which would mean that that character died twice in the last two games I played him in. Fortunately the DM took pity on us I think (potentially because we had a first time player with us) and had us be rescued by a Lizard on a Stick merchant we'd interacted with earlier in the story.

Thursdays are a little weird right now... we're doing the game off site as I think I mentioned for the last couple of weeks, and we're doing a hard cover book as well, which is a very different animal... and half of our players had to leave in the middle of the game to go and pick up food that should have been delivered by Urghber Eats, but somebody fucked up the address, so that was just weird.

Also, on a slightly related note... I have been having some very, very weird and fucked up conversations with a couple of the boys I play DnD with. By weird and fucked up, I mostly mean that they have an odd sexual element, not in an anyone hitting on anyone way, just sexual in nature. Trust me, I'm not complaining, it's just odd. Even though the more recent conversation is one of those where there really doesn't appear to be any kind of a filter in what we're saying... or possibly just me, because my filter just doesn't seem to work with him. Mostly when we're texting, but even in person a little bit. He's that kind of guy.

Again, I'm not hating it, I'm just not used to having so little filter. Is this what people do in the world? I really have no idea.

It's very possibly I just need to get laid in an effective and satisfying way. And I will say that these conversations with my boys are not making that need any less prevalent. Neither is the fact I'm having conversations with a number of other people who should, in theory, be able to assist with the issue, but are being... I'm going to go with temperamental. Or, conversely, I shouldn't be talking to in the first place.

Now what did I say about my filter being on the fritz? Yeah, that.

This week was also Ma's birthday and Owlgirl's birthday, since one comes directly after the other.

Have I mentioned at any point that I regularly have no fucking idea what the date is? Yeah, that happened this week and while I remembered that it was Ma's birthday, I didn't remember until about 11:30am.

And I'm broke and she didn't really want anything, so, yeah...

However, that brings us around to today.

Oh, before I get to that, I very successfully made chowder (CHOW-DAH) for the first time this week, using this recipe. Although interestingly enough I didn't use as much milk as the recipe called for. Also it would have potentially been nice with some cream. But it was pretty fucking impressive.

This week I really had no damn ideas, so I'm just going simple, with basically vegetable soup. M'eh, it's fine.

Anyway, we did the supermarket thing, as we do. And came back her, as we do. And then decided to head into the city, as we do.

The main reason for the city trip was to check out the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize, since we never had the opportunity to go to the one last year (for obvious reasons)... It wasn't a bad one... there were a few really nice pieces (some of my favourites of which are featured on the right), but nothing that really made either of us stand there and go "wow".

But it was a good way to spend a hour or so.

Then we did a bit of a wander down the Mall... nothing terribly exciting once again, but it wasn't bad either.

Ma wanted to head back to Empress near my place for her birthday dinner, and since we went there for my birthday dinner (technically we went to a much shittier place on my actual birthday, but I'm counting Empress as my birthday dinner because it was good), I wasn't going to complain.

The only potential issue was that they do Yum Cha on weekends, and I thought we might have had trouble actually getting a table.

Turned out, not so much, after a very, very long pause while the woman who greeted us did a bunch of calculations in her head (insert meme image of woman with formulas here), she gave us a table straight away.

This was also the first Yum Cha place we've been to where it was a combination of what I always thought Yum Cha was, staff moving around the restaurant with dishes you could just choose, and what it's been ever other time, which is picking from a menu of small dishes. And I don't hate the wandering around aspect... although if we'd really realised, then we may have ordered less things.

Also, the wandering boys need to learn to enunciate... or have a sign, or something. Especially when you think you're getting something involving plantain and it turns out to be spring onion.

The food is delicious though, so that's the main thing.

That was pretty much our day though. Shopping, art, food. Not a bad way to spend it to be honest.

Current Mood:

photo saturday: headshots

Okay, so parts of this week kind of crept up on me.

Starting at the beginning, I made a fairly decent stew on Sunday, but to allow it to cook for long enough, I put it in the oven around 1:30pm and didn't take it out until after 7:30pm... so the meat was pretty damn tender.

Then I ended up running all three DnD games I was involved in this week... it wasn't necessarily supposed to be like that, but I've gotten into the habit of running on Mondays, mostly due to the cute Canadian dude who keeps showing up, and I ran his first game for him, and he's a fun player... and he's cute.

Wednesday I had two of the boys who haven't been around for a while in my group... so as much as I like being in a game with them, I like running for them. Plus nobody else was standing up and saying they'd run.

And Thursday I ran for my usual group, and as always, the adventure that killed the whole party when I played it, they essentially made it through without much drama. Yes, it's partly because I don't have that killer instinct, I don't WANT to kill off their characters, because I know how much that fucking sucks. I maybe need to go a little harder, make them think they are going to die (the characters that is) before I have them finish triumphantly.

Taking a slight left turn for a second, one of the things I always kid Ma about is that if I say to her "oh, I've been looking for this thing, but I can't find one anywhere", she will at times go out of her way to go and look for or find said item... and sometimes it's just something that I just want to consider, and sometimes I have to tell her to just not obsess over things.

And weirdly, I've had three separate conversations with three different people during the last week (or so), and I have realised that I'm doing the exact same thing in all three cases.

Fortunately one is being received with an appropriate level of engagement, one is a practical thing that will resolve easily and the third is something that I need to sit on my hands about until (or even if) the other party comes back to me for further discussions. It's weird that it's something I've been doing since forever, but I never really made the connection between that and Ma until this week, and in turn realised that the third instance absolutely requires a large amount of hand sitting.

Also, there are lines that shouldn't be crossed, let alone driven across in a bulldozer wrapped in high explosives. So there's that.

Otherwise I absolutely forgot that this week was both my haircut and my chiro appointment (since the two have synced up to the same week). I mean, I remembered in time to go to both things, but I forgot that this week was the week for them both.

The haircut went exactly the same as always... good chat, short hair, silver-ish colour.

Likewise the chiro appointment was much the same... thankfully my back was in a better state than the last time I went.

Today I was on my own for the supermarket portion of the morning... Ma's haircut seems to also have synced up with mine, at least I think it has... maybe it was just this time.

I hit a bit of a wall yesterday in the "what fucking soup do I want to make?" arena... but after some random Googling I decided on chicken and corn chowder. So we'll see how that goes since I've never made chowder before (if you don't count my tuna mornay, which I guess is kind of like a chowder).

Otherwise there was some shopping, and it was all a bit average to be honest.

When Ma came down we didn't really have a plan, so we did the new version of "wandering around Arndale", which is going to Big W, then Target, then calling it a day.

Which is what we did.

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