Okay, so my first two options were booked.  At the moment I have reservations for Sunday April 3rd at 11:15 booked, if that appeals to anyone!

Would people be interested in joining me for a Boston Chocolate Walking tour in honor of my birthday?  The site is at:
http://www.bostonchocolatewalkingtours.com/  and I'm thinking of going at 11:15 on Sunday, March 27th.

So much snow! Looking out the back window at work, the snow is almost to the top of the chaink link fence that surrounds a little play area in the back. Surreal...

Good things and frustrating things:

I had a delightful time at PSY (http://7doigts.com/en) It was a very interesting combination of astonishing acrobatics to interesting and edgy music, all set within the frame of various psychological conditions and stories. A grittier, more narrative and realistic Cirque.

Our kitchen is become less proto and more kitchen-y. There was a whole saga with getting our new appliances and getting rid of our old ones. The main point is that our kitchen is too high up in the air for the delivery people to enter while holding appliances. Sad, but true! We've solved it now but, yech, much frustration.

Looking forward to this weekend, though! (But need to go back to work. Darn 30 minute break!)

Bullet Points!

* Friday night was the Bizarre Costume Triangle surprise for hilariarex! Considering the whole thing came from way, way, left field she recovered very gracefully :) And a big thanks to tressum for herding the rest of us cats so it could all come together. Then down to Providence for...

*...putting together an awesome baby shower. Huge kudos to minervaish for the organization and space even while under the weather, to, um, that-woman-who-dares-share-my-name-but-has-the-good-grace-to-have-a-nickname, for importing her kitchen and churning out delicious food, and for conspiratrix for general making it go-ness and being tall on chairs. I also helped out a bit, but less than I would have liked because I was nauseous, feverish, achy...all in all I suspect food poisoning. Yay?

*Meeesterious morning meeting at a hair salon with two very nice ladies and one daughter. The daughter has a kick ass apartment on the Providence waterfront, a penchant for costume design and a wand from Harry Potter world, none of which I would have guessed from looking at her. Well, maybe the first one. No judging books from covers! I learned a lot from talking with the two ladies, even though sometimes they couldn't hear me when they were getting rinsed or blow dried. Otherwise, I'd recommend salons for any meeesterious meetings you may have in the future. Calming music, soft lighting, nice scents - quite relaxing.

*Going to awesome baby shower. I'm so excited for foolishfire! It was a lot of fun swapping childhood stories and listening to the parenting ones. They do what to the who now?! Alas that most of the butterflied cupcakes were safe from me, but I did eat one at the end. It would have felt far too unnatural otherwise!

*Graciously getting a ride from ryxander to the charity auction. The car ride was a great chance to spend some quality time with someone I actually don't get to talk with much. Yay for good conversation!

*The dinner was also very nice, and a learned a bit more about Randy and the charity, a lot of which made me think. I aaaalmost bought some seamstress time, but decided against it. It still means I need to hire someone to sew a new lining on my winter coat. Any takers here? We left a bit early because I wasn't feeling well, but there was still time to chat with people I don't normally get a chance to talk to in, well, a regular setting.

*Sunday I did a little teaching and a lot more vegging on the couch, feeling sickly. Didn't make it the lantern festival, but did watch Secret of the Kells on Instant Queue, which I'd highly recommend. The animation is lovely and, while the plot is a little thin, it's still engaging.

*Tuesday was Mummenschanz! Very engaging and whimsical. I particularly liked the person in black who dressed themselves in tuxedo and various faces using masking tape and audience help. As someone who uses masking tape all the darn time, it's nice to be able to imagine some more creative uses for it. But I loved all the skits where you couldn't quite tell where the person was, or when something unexpected came to life, or watching one thing change into another. Just magical. Oh, and the delicious tapas before and after was also magical. But that was also due to the delightful company!

I'm feeling better now - I think the food poisoning is out of my system. At least if the four (five?) newly baked cookies I ate last night are any indication. Mmmm... Life is Good.

*Went to a nice wedding last weekend. It was a family friend about my brother's age, out in Annapolis, in historic London Towne. I hadn't been able to make the wedding last year of the sister who is my age (but happy anniversary conspiratrix and jameyhasnolj!) so it was a actually a really nice opportunity to talk to them. And to dance :) Oh, yeah, and to see my family and stuff. My sister-in-law couldn't make it, which was sad. Oh, and I don't think I've Announced it on LJ yet:

MY BROTHER IS HAVING TWINS!!! AHHH!!!!

We're too young to be reproducing! He's still practicing wrestling moves on me and hiding his cabbage patch dolls in my room when his friends come over! AIE!

They just found out last week that they're having a girl and a boy. They had a long roll of ultrasounds and everything. With heads! And spines! And cwute wittle fingers!

I'm kind of excited about being an aunt, though a little worried for my brother and sister-in-law's sanity. Yikes! Twins!

*Were Adult and had some of K_beckett's family friends from home, recently moved to the area, over for dinner. I think feeding the Interns counts as a nice mitzvah. Especially since my sweetie's Italian heritage decided to send them home with precious, precious leftovers. I hadn't realized it was a tradition for people other than Mothers. Though I do realize they probably need the instant nutrition more than me!

*Does anyone happen to have a white roman/greek looking dress I could borrow? Halloween stories are a surprisingly expensive for that sort of thing.

Slowly coming back to reality after a really splendid vacation. It's hard to believe it was only two weeks, but I have the hundreds of pictures to prove it. I'm trying to keep up momentum on the labeling and culling, so that someday you won't have sit through a 1,000 pictures just to get to that one really cool one of the leopard on the termite mound.

We did a smart thing on our first full day back and unpacked everything and cleaned the house. If we hadn't done it then, we probably still would be unpacking our bags! Well, maybe not - we only brought two backpacks and a shopping bag for incidental overflow. Less than what we pack for a game, as k_beckett pointed out. My parents were very impressed and made us take comparative pictures with their huge suitcases and carry-ons.

We also stayed awake by going to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World with Minervaish. It was great! As soon as we heard the midi adaptation of the Universal song, we knew this was a movie for our generation. We also got to visit our fairy godson and family and do a dry run of our pictures (they were troopers for sitting through so many!) The next day saw more lazing about in our nice, clean house, before some hanging out and tasty Indian food with M&N. They also had too look at our pictures, but at least we plied them with Amarula first. I was the one who fell asleep halfway through, though. Yeah...definitely need fewer pictures.

Monday was back to Work. It would have been tough, except for the part where we had only 9 children, instead of our theoretical maximum of 19. Thanks goodness for vacations! Our kids are very sweet, too, so the job really has been delightful. I even got to show off my pictures more! (Sense a theme?) But I only showed them the ones with animals in them, so there were only...150 over the course of two days. SO MANY PICTURES! But it's been a pleasant transition- there's nothing quite like the sound of a roomful of children giggling because they've covered you with a blanket. Hilarious!!

Now it's time to look forward, and figure out the next vacation! Hmm...England in May sound good to anyone?

We're back!

We started the first leg of our journey on Thursday, 9:30 am, South African time (3:30 am East Coast Standard time) and finally got home at around 3:00 pm today. So we just baaarely missed the 36 hours of travel time. Dammit! I knew a 3 hour delay in Johannesburg just wasn't going to be long enough!

Now I am greedily digging into the internet. Maybe it'll even keep me awake for a few more hours?

So, yes, South Africa! We're really here! We've written up several paragraphs on the trip so far, behind a cut because, as my teachers have often pointed out, I tend to get a bit wordy in my descriptions...
( Landing, Cape Town and Day tripsCollapse )
We're currently in Knysna, about to head off to a Forest walk. K_beckett is going to drive for his first time on the wrong side of the road, so wish us luck!