"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

So, the Boyz came over this evening, as they often do, and we caught up on our lives, and we solved the problems of the world, and we watched the latest Game of Thrones episode.

Afterwards, we talked more, and we actually got into an argument where voices were raised and tempers flared. About Victorian post-mortem photography, and whether this represented a more "organic" (and possibly wholesome) view of death than modern sensibilities do.

Arguing about religion and death and photography. :-) I love my friends.

Please be on the look out for anyone you might know who needs a roommate or will be looking to sublet a small place in the near future. A friend of mine from Boston (rubicat) is interested in moving to the DC area and is hoping to find a small pied a terre (a bedroom in a shared flat or a bedsit) so as to be able to get here on the ground and start looking for work. Any assistance would be much appreciated!

Coming home to find it still 76* at 1 am can dull the pleasure of a lovely evening with some of my best friends. A delicious meal, wonderful company, fun games--it doesn't get much better than this. :-)

Stove/oven/range cleaned (at the cost of a bruised thumb). Not quite mother-in-law visiting clean, but probably as close to it as it has been in the 4 years I've lived here. Got new cat box (to replace old, manky one; I'll replace all three eventually); purchased and installed, has been sniffed but not yet used by cats. More cat food also acquired for the next fortnight. Washed lots of dishes the other day, but many more have appeared that need now to be taken care of in their turn. Massive quantity of laundry needs to be done (skipped it last weekend). Really ought to vacuum the whole place, but there's only so much that can be done.

Had a nice day yesterday with john_arundel, gr_c17, josh_cru, and our friend Phil. Played one long American Revolution battle, then a short sci fi battle. Working on the OBs for another Rev War battle to play with B & P on Tuesday night. B brought along a bottle from his father's ancient stash. The cork disintegrated, so we had to strain it, but what was inside was very nice 12yo scotch (that had spent another 20+ years in the bottle!)

Unexpectedly balmy today. Cats are enjoying some open windows. It's nice having friends over, and it gets me spun up to do and enjoy things. Otherwise I've been feeling a bit like Milo at the beginning of The Phantom Tollbooth--lots of things I could do, but none of them seem to have any point or appeal. It's a shame to waste these nice days moping indoors; I did get out and go for a hike last weekend, just in one of the local stream-parks; it seems like so much trouble to get anywhere really worthwhile, though; too damn many people around here, clogging up all the roads.

Whew! Got my taxes done (far too close tot he last minute!) And a nice bit of cash to come back, which maybe The Teacher and I can use for some of the trips we keep planning for our spare time (ha! as if we had any of that!)

She and I had a delicious dinner with C& M last night. She really liked them a lot (as who wouldn't) and everyone seemed to get on well.

I got the latest car tuneup accomplished after about 3-4x as long as it should have taken, nuking most of my day.

Also had a very fun game of Battlefront over the weekend with some of the lads, followed by a game of Agricola. I'm almost sure my hairsbreadth victory had nothing to do with forgetting to tell them important rules until near the end of the game. (Which john_arundel swears is part of my fiendish MO.

Speaking of him, The Teacher and I also went out yesterday to see the MTT field at Marietta. Master Arundel was there with Sir Geoffrey Peel's Company, all looking prosperous and healthy despite the rain Saturday. We stopped and talked to people from several other groups, including fellows from The Ship's Company, who had erected a slice of a ship's gundeck as their camp. Also some WOTR chaps, a group of 1er REP, an East German infantryman, and some early Byzantine types. Oh, plus lads of the 84th RHE (Rev War) and a motley group of Jacobites. :-D

Because I use this journal as my sounding board, I do a fair bit of complaining here. I feel I have a fair bit to complain about (more than some, less than others), but I'm sure it gets boring after a while.

Every once in a while, however, something happens that is so nice that it really needs to be celebrated. ( Here are two. )

Not that I've been in a fit on thanklessness...

For Friday, I am thankful for, of all things, our highway system. I had to work late, and when I was done and on my way home, since it was long after commuting hours, I was able to jump on the Dulles Toll Road, take it to the Beltway (the section of Interstate highway that runs around DC, and ride around the north side of the city to the state road that takes me home. It's a comparatively long way to go every day, but when there's little traffic, I can go back and forth fairly quickly. Our roads mean that I when I had to switch from one job in my company to a new one, I could do that without having to move house. I'm grateful for that.

For Saturday, I am thankful for the friends I share my hobbies with. gr_c17 and The Attorney came over, and we spent the afternoon and evening working on various gaming projects. B had some wee sci fi troopers he was painting; E was finishing off his second DBA army--New Kingdom Egyptians--while I did bits of work on a couple of DBA commands (nearing completion/revision of the Fatimid Egyptians, landscaping the bases of my Sassanid Persians, turning a tower model I got a while back into a camp), and readying my WWI Russian Baltic Fleet for painting (they're 1/2400 scale models, so even the limited assembly I had to do was rather fiddly). We drank coffee, ate lunch, chatted about all sorts of things--it was a nice, low-key way to spend an afternoon.

For Sunday, I am thankful for the great parks we have all over the DC area. I grumble sometimes about how hard it is to get to the one I want to or how the constant stream of "development" (i.e., the building of more and more soulless townhouse or SFH tracts) impinges on them, but there are a remarkably decent number of fairly large parks, the kind where you can wander for hours and not hear much in the way of traffic, other than the occasional aircraft overhead, where there are many wild birds, deer, and smaller mammals to enjoy seeing and hearing. I went for a ramble in one park yesterday with redactrice after we'd had a nice picnic with shy_kat (whose twisted ankle is still preventing her from joining in ambles :-( We saw chipmunks and titmice and heard flickers and woodpeckers. We swinked up hill and down dale, managing to avoid sliding in the occasional mud patch and enjoying the chilly, mostly leafless woods of Maryland.

What am I thankful for today?

How about having been married to someone for 17 years, someone who remains a good friend today? We met in college, were friends for years, dated, split up, got back together, had a long and mostly happy married life, and divorced when it seemed like the best thing for both of us, and went back to being good friends, where we remain (and I hope always will). We had some excellent adventures, loved each other, helped each other through some adversities, fostered each other's growth as human beings, and still respect each other, care about each other, and have good times. We've even added friends to each other's lives through the people we've dated since then--her wife, shy_kat, has become a dear friend of mine, and the two of them are good friends with poliscidiva, even though she and I didn't end up together.

Today I'm thankful for Christian Howlett. :-)